Vermilion Ascendant
by Krahae
Summary: When atrocity has become your nature, only in nightmares can you find solace. WARNING: Heavy M for violence. Is slasher slash a genre?
1. Preface

Warning and disclaimer:

This is not a pleasant work. It will be loaded with just about every atrocity my mind can conjure. It's meant to be dark, to the point of blackness. I won't list the things here. If you dislike violence and death, stop now. If you dislike pain and psychological trauma, stop now.

I don't own the source material. The ideas, sadly, are mine.

_OoO_

One month.

Two people, bound by a common thread. _Vengeance_.

The Hive has escaped the prison that Titans East & West had put them into, the cold tombs of cryogenic stasis. Their first target for revenge was not the Tower by the Bay, or Gotham's Prodigal in the East. Nothing stings more than betrayal. Jinx learned first hand the cost of this.

The Titans and the JLA have always worked for the greater good, the betterment and defense of mankind. When one of their own, through actions that saved the world they called home becomes the vessel of power beyond their reckoning, they felt there was no choice but to banish her, like her father.

One called for a spirit of hate and revenge to come, and consume her as payment for revenge. The other answered.

Let the Bloodmoon begin.


	2. Chapter 1

_**Vermilion Ascendant**_

_Chapter One _

The sky and earth, each day, the same. A glare of eye-numbing white. Featureless and without variation, it never changed. Four walls sprung up from and supported them, made of the same unflinching glare. The light that defined the room in a shadowless way radiated from the walls themselves, seemingly.

A shadow sat in the middle, suspended in the merciless light. There were no windows, showing the clear blue sky outside. No door, promising the possibility of a change in this bleak scene. Unchanging as this place was, the shadow within was well suited for it. For those who were custodians of this damned locale could not remember a time when it had moved. Nearly two years ago, no vast span of time, the shadow had been imprisoned in this place. Few remembered more than that, besides the impressive cell that was made specifically for the prisoner, and transported there whole, it's occupant already within. A marvel of magical construction and warding, the construct was the child of many great magicians. All contributing a little of themselves to safeguard and contain that which was within.

All this, for a young woman, who never moved. Never stood from her huddle. Whom had not shifted an inch in nearly two years since the Cataclysm passed.

The house of this odd cell, Arkham Asylum perched above the Gotham bay, looming despite the clear sky and bright sun. It was a gruesome, stately monument to the horrors humans persisted on visiting on each other. It was also a reminder that humans were not alone in that. Over the last few years less and less of the population of Arkham had been human, as the powers that be had declared. Metahumans, as the law declared them, were a different kind of creature, in the public eye these dire days. Not all were wicked or cruel, just as not all humans were. Each heart had that choice, but too much sorrow, too much pain had been sown by those few who had darkness within them.

Then there were those who wore darkness as a shroud.

_OoO_

She stood there, the cold wind ripping through her clothing easily as she idled on the broken shell of a once-proud tower. In the distance she could see it's counter, still glowing with the light of hope and justice out within the calm grasp of the Bay. The husk she rested on was the remnant of a long dead war, a battle she lost in the not-so distant past. Wicked gusts pulled at her slight frame, and she winced as the first stinging shards of sleet bit at her exposed face.

The tower she currently stood upon meant nothing, now. One of the many structures still being scoured for all traces of clues to the Brotherhood, Slade, the Night Parade or some other of the myriad forces that seemed ever ready to move against the great city, so central to the West Coast.

No one knew why. It was just natural, in it's irregularity for such things to happen. Like Gotham, Metropolis – perhaps the sheer density of habitation was too high. The law of averages demanded that for so many, such had to happen.

She grinned ruefully as the idle thoughts wandered through her mind, while the wind snapped her pale hair into her face. Her gaze wandered about the city lights far below, picking out through long memory locations and landmarks of her life. Warehouse districts along the shore. The industrial zone, rife with factories and foundries. Scene after scene of her defeats, her failures.

All her weakest moments. The smile faded as her memory replayed the worst of those – the months after the Titans had defeated the Hive and by some fluke they returned. Returned vindictive and full of hate. Something had loosed them on the world again, and as one they had sought out the one person whom all could focus on, a cause for their lost time and possibilities.

Jinx.

She knew it was her own fault, the gravity of her actions finding her out and balancing her. To a degree she had welcomed those hate-filled words and glances. For so long, guilt had rent her, twisted up her insides and made her sick to the soul, for all those friends and the lost time spent for her own future, like so much coin. She welcomed it knowing that finally something was taking her actions and setting the record back to zero, in her mind.

Nothing had seemed fair though, with how things ended. She looked down at her ruined arm, the glint of metal showing through the gap between her shirt and trousers as the wind pulled the garments roughly. Listened to the rasp of her breath, hollow and unnatural through the synthetics that kept her alive, and the faded glint of coral that was her hair.

The ruin of her had been discovered, and her erstwhile enemies, the Titans, took pity on her. Victor pieced her together with some of his own technology, lending her frame strength with a body made of plastic and futuristic steel. Irony, she mused, that the man she'd once found such a kindred spirit would be the template upon which she would survive. Yet, some things could not be replaced.

Aaron being one of those.

"I was ready," her voice, oddly echoing and alien still in her ears, whispered against the wind. "Chance won't even let me end cleanly, it seems." Her eye, the remaining one that functioned, dilated to a near black pit in the darkness. The other was lost long ago, to someone's hate.

_Vengeance_. She was sick to death of the idea. Always someone, something sought it, worked it, spread it like a plague and it did nothing but build and curl around people and drag the life from them. It never ended. Her lip quirked. "It never does end. Always, there will be one wronged. One left with a heart full of hate and bile.

"And so I offer the last thing I have, wholly mine. For vengeance." Her voice went quiet, as she bent down and dug sharply with her metal fingers into the dirt in the trough at her feet. Her hands worked a small ball of clay, dry and crumbling, as she twisted her numb fingers ineptly while her still-flesh hand sought out the imperfections. Jinx spat upon the work, reflecting on all the faces she knew, all the voices and names. Each time she had one clearly, she lent her spittle to the thing. Those whom she wished to know balance, now. Satisfied with the shape she'd formed, a dry, rough sphere, she picked up a silvered knife from her small collection of tools and pressed it's triangle tip repeatedly into the surface, her voice murmuring a chant quietly as she worked.

_Blood of mine, to seek out thine__  
For thy heart, for thy heart  
who has wronged me._

Three times she said this, as the sphere took final form. The last repetition of three, and she split the thing in half, staring at the coarse interior. Slashing her finger savagely with a twist of the knife, she bloodied the halves of the sphere, letting the vermilion soak into the formed dust of either hemisphere.

Taking the blooded knife, she reached up and cut free a lock of hair, and placed it, the center of the sphere marking where the hair would originate, as she mated the halves again. The silvered knife worked again as the chant changed, taking on a different verse.

_Sorrow wrought, lacking thought  
For thy life, for thy life  
I am calling_

Now she kindled a fire, low and hot, adding to it dust from bones shed dredged from the Bay. Shadowthings danced about, in the demon-bone fed blaze, nearly tangible at the light's edges. Such things didn't concern her. As she worked the blaze, she let the glinting blade settle in the embers. Melting ever so slightly, the molten silver working into the sphere, making the facets more and more defined. Her trance deepened as she worked, the palm-sized focus of her ritual now looking less a ball of rough mud, and more a dull gray thing of many, many small facets.

She looked over her work, feeling lightheaded and faint. Her reserves of energy were nothing compared to what she could muster, a year before. Before she'd become this ruin. The next part of the ritual would be difficult, if not prohibitive to most. Her mirthless smirk settled, as for the next half-dozen minutes she held the sphere into the blaze, her hand cradling, rotating it slowly. Her metal, lifeless hand.

Again, the chant changed, as did the focus. The flames licked at her hair and devoured it, far too slowly, leading back to the heart of the thing. The surface seemed to go molten, the heat intense and withering. Slowly, she knew the conduit of her hair burned, leading the fire to the core. All that she needed was for it to ignite...

_Form of shade, I have bade  
For my soul, for my soul  
I am offering_

The final verse, said thrice as those before, was over just as the perfectly faceted, ruby sphere now resting in her hand caught alight from it's core. Her lips peeled back slowly from a mouth half full of perfect ceramic and the remnants of her own teeth. A grim smile indeed, to welcome the pool of shadow that rose up from a gloom that dominated the rooftop, the sphere pulsing slowly like a heartbeat in her outstretched palm.

She held it, level to her own heart as the shadow rose and engulfed her hand. Finally rising up fully, the shadow-thing shifted and took form, as Jinx's remaining eye widened in shock.

_OoO_

Those within the prison, her jailers, knew she still existed. This was a surety, but nothing she could know told her those beyond these walls shared that knowledge. Despite the mage-dead walls, the runic-spell wards encasing the perfectly equilateral cube that had been her home since the Cataclysm. They knew she still abided. She could taste their fear. Drink in the nightmares of often-napping orderlies and lazing guards. This place was a buffet of suffering, something she'd come to understand, appreciate more clearly than in her naïve youth.

This was the poor thanks she'd received. Saving the world must have been meant less when it was done by the daughter of the one trying to end it. Her time had finally, after so many years of waiting, come and in the wake of it all, she'd been prepared. She'd ripped the power from her father, left him a shell of the demon he'd been. But in doing so, she'd become a power to eclipse even him.

Those who considered themselves the guardians of this world had feared her newly-realized power. Her mother had worked with the host of her damned home of Azarath and sealed her, still reeling from the heady rush of victory. Those were sacrificed, to bind her power back into something manageable, ripping from her the new mantle of Trigon's might.

Betrayal would not stop there. The League had built this place, a safe haven for her in her crisis, a shelter from the wrath of Trigon. _A trap_.

In the end, those she counted friend had played the part of trapper, leading her, promising sweet peace and silence after the maelstrom. Something she desperately needed to find her focus, and center again. She needed them as well, her only anchors in that storm, her friends and allies for so long.

She's found her center, after nearly two years of dwelling within her own skull, her only company being her own thoughts and the fractured, maddening whirl of her personified emotions. Oh yes, Raven had found that center. Within her quiet, seeming comatose shell she raged. Cold and calculating, waiting.

After waiting eighteen years to know the freedom of either death or triumph, and tasting the millennia-old memories of her long-banished father, she'd grown easy in her patience. Two years so far had been a very little thing to tolerate. What she had difficulty bearing was the knowledge that while she abided here, in this luminescent hell, those that put her here, for the greater good, for the greater good... still lived and walked free.

The greater good. She had worked her whole life for this ideal. Sacrificing of herself. Vanquishing evil. Undoing wrong. Doling justice. A lifetime of good, and one act saw her balanced. An act she never committed. Evil she had never done.

Yet... in her unchanging horizon, so numbing for so long, a day came where an unfamiliar call breached her seemingly impenetrable prison. It was sweet. The tune sang inside her veins slow and pretty, stretching from toe to the tip of each hair. It sang like her name, whispered by a lover never known.

Something in her answered. She couldn't help but answer.

_OoO_

"Raven."

The shadow coalesced around the faintly pulsing gem, solidifying, crowned by a cold smile. "You called?"

Jinx reeled back, her hand resisting the motion still as it was thrust wrist-deep into Raven's breast. Her flinching fall dislodged it, trailing a wisp of shadowstuff behind. The glinting gem was no longer grasped in those metal digits, as she braced upon it from her graceless fall. "Why... why are you here?"

Blinking preternaturally pearlescent eyes, Raven gathered the stuff of her soul about her more solidly. Those same four eyes, arranged in a slight slant below the red Anja Chakra gem regarded her once enemy and ally Jinx, still and calculating. "You called. I came. I assume you didn't perform such a complex ritual as the Bloodmoon by accident?"

"Of course not," the Thief retorted, shuffling stiffly as she righted herself, the irony of her position not lost to her. She, the summoner kneeling before the demon she'd summoned. "I just didn't expect you. I was expecting..." She didn't know what she had expected, so much as hoped for. The ritual she had done was an ancient, yet common thing. Small variations, bastardizations had been used and torn from it for long centuries, and she honestly doubted that the one she'd used was the true one, really. What she did know, was that it would work, as the young sorceress had lost a mentor to it's use during her early years. The ceremony was a last act, a benediction and epitaph, written in blood and focused only on enacting one's vengeance, warranted or not, on parties that summoner decreed. The cost, though, was high. One's soul, food for the beast you summoned, once your deed was done. Raven though... she was not what Jinx had expected. She had expected-

Raven's lip rose fractionally. "A real demon?"

"Well, that was the plan, you know."

Shifting her head slightly in acknowledgment, the half-demon glanced down to the pale skin still exposed from the parting of her shrouding cloak. Three facets of the Bloodmoon gem glinted there faintly, pulsing in time to Jinx's heartbeat as it nestled over where one's heart should be. "So. You invoked me, with a ritual of sacrificial vengeance. Your soul, for their deaths?"

Pale lips thinned to a line. "We both know the nature of the ceremony, Raven."

"Indeed. Color me curious that you, of all people, would take such drastic measures." In fact many things piqued Raven's curiosity. She had been absent soon after Jinx's conversion to the side of angels, so this new young woman before her, a remade Jinx, roused her interest. "What happened to you?"

Looking away quickly, her good eye still in the light, Jinx seemed to go very, very still. "The Hive found me. Shortly after they closed the lock on you, someone unlocked them," her voice was quiet, but Raven's ears had no problems picking out her words, as well as the thick layer of pain in them. "I turned. Betrayed them, as I'm sure they saw it. Despite doing it wholly for myself, I was there when the Titans made the final move. So-"

"So when they thawed, they came for you first."

"I was, obviously, a good target," the former Thief said between clenched teeth. "My reasons were my own. I didn't move to betray them, only make a life for myself."

Laughing mirthless, quietly once, the half-demon simply held Jinx's now monoptic gaze with her own for long moments. "It doesn't matter. Vengeance... as you know has nothing to do with justice."

Jinx spat on the ground and sneered, "As if you need to educate me on this." Tilting her head up, the coral eye narrowed to a slit, "So. You answered. Do we have a deal?" Mild surprise registered on Jinx's face, as Raven seemed to waver, blinking openly at the question. Impatience grew to overwhelm it, as she waited long moments for the former Titan to answer. Finally her impatience won, and Jinx hissed her annoyance, "well?"

"Your soul," Raven replied woodenly. "I have never taken a soul." Her hand shifted up to the exposed facets of the Bloodmoon, and she winced as the warm hardness slid under her fingers. "Past my father I've never even taken a life..." a thought, vile and persistent that had screeched and crowed in her mind for long months came to the fore, and the demoness stilled, even the wind's lifting of her hair faltering a moment. "They are still here, aren't they?"

Jinx wasn't stupid. She could nearly hear the thoughts that raged inside the young... woman, she had summoned. "If you mean the Titans... yes. They saved me after the Hive left me for dead."

"You owe them, then," it was more statement than question, and Raven practically shook as the howl of anger in her mind rocked the core her mind.

Venom dripping from her words, Jinx smiled slowly as she answered, "No. I owe them nothing," Rising unsteadily, she wheezed a rattling breath and closed her eye, her head turning to reveal the bandage that still covered the side of her face where the other should be. "I didn't want to be alive, after that. I lost too much. I'm not _me_ anymore, Raven. I'm just a container. A vessel holding the one thing I can use to give my mind peace after all this."

The intensity of the sheer hate in her words would have shocked the former hero if not for the rising keen that echoed in her ears. A thousand voices inside her clamored for attention, all calling for one thing, the same thing. "And so... lets speak on terms, then."

"Terms?" Jinx practically screamed as the word ripped from her lips, a suspicious glare leveled at the demon. "I don't think so. My soul, their death, within one month of the ritual. That's the contract. Do you accept?"

"There's always room for negotiation," the half-demon practically purred, slipping a darkness shrouded hand to the broken woman's shoulder.

_OoO_

**Day One: William Madsen**

Some thing in this world do not change, no matter how much time passes. "Why do you insist on eating things that have a mind, can think and feel? Doesn't that bother you at all?" Garfield Logan stilled in his rant as he came into the kitchen, and leaned on a counter, massaging a temple as he tried to block the smell from his mind. _Meat_.

The stink of it was all over the room.

Only then did he realize, that Cyborg was not in the kitchen where he'd expected him to be. Instead, there was Megan. The Martian girl had settled at the table, and was looking at him quizzically, a fork full of pancake halfway to her lips. Blushing his embarrassment, the changeling looked about quickly and saw no trace of the usual target for his rancor, Cyborg. "Sorry?" the young woman, the only other green hero in residence, mumbled as she eyed her food for a moment, eyebrow raised.

"Sorry Megan, I just thought... nevermind." Still embarrassed, the smell forgotten for the time being, Garfield went to the living room to join the other Titans in watching the news and chatting. Mornings had become less stressful in the last year, as most of the heroes and villains of the city matured. Schemes and plans were longer, more intricately set upon, and the effort to undo them had risen as well.

The common factor was time. Rather than the hectic bustle that was the usual in the Bay area, now it was steady, heavy pulse of work. Sure, there were always small-timers out there, looking to make a name, or prove themselves. Those were often either taken down by a single Titan, or some other vigilante that was trying to do the same thing.

It was a simple balance, and they were settling into it nicely. It was nice to have a such an easy time of things, after so many years of constant battles and vendettas. On top of it all, it was a beautiful day outside, as October was just beginning. Robin was leaning on the windows, his back to the room as he smiled out at the waters lapping gently against the Tower's shore. "Cy, anything on the reads today?"

Scanning his temporary memory quickly, Cyborg grunted a negative. "Seems quiet, nothing in the news or underground." Over the last two years, as his knowledge had grown and blossomed, the cybernetic Teen had gained a greater understanding of himself, and his 'hobby'. The formerly glaring shell of his body's support systems seemed less artificial, using new pliable metals and more streamlined systems, carbon fibers and nanotech. He could pass for human, with a little work now. "Only thing seems to do today, is the usual weekly fan mail."

Starfire chuckled, but looked to Robin, as he stood haloed by the morning sun, "Why do they send us so many letters?"

"Gratitude, I think," he replied, turning and stretching stiffly, his morning routine barely begun. His mind was already two hours forward, thinking about the practice room and working all the wrinkles out of his mind by hammering them down with his fists on the bags. "But we're also just high profile. Well, lets get to it."

The collected Titans, their numbers as always in flux but currently less so, since the last year, sat about the common room easily, relaxing as they could during a quiet day. Robin, Beast-Boy – who now went by Changeling since turning twenty, Starfire and Cyborg were the constant, veteran core of the group. New faces were there as well. Megan, the female Martian, still sat in the kitchen, pondering the ecology of pancakes. Impulse was doing sudoku puzzles with a stopwatch dangling from his wrist, his pencil moving just below the speed that would ignite the paper through friction. Superboy and Wondergirl, Kon-el and Cassie respectively, sat to the side on a two-seater, enjoying a quiet morning and each other's company as they helped deal with the small mountain of mail.

Stacks were sorted, and each had their own small bundle to deal with as they would. There was a general agreement that no one would criticize how the others handled their own fans, so as Robin hauled his small sheaf of letters to a garbage chute, Garfield cackled at a joke one of his pen-pals had sent him. Regardless, the usual ceremony of mail had one constant: group packages.

In the middle of the table, a medium size box, maybe a foot and a half square, stamped and stickered as if having ventured many customs ports, sat along with it's other company. These were the sometimes awkward gifts, sent to the heroes either by grateful citizens or rabid fans. As a rule, these were handled last, as sometimes they needed to be analyzed for potential threats or the contents passed out.

Garfield again wrinkled his nose, glaring at Cyborg. His thoughts turned sour, despite the witty letter in his hand, as the smell reached him again. "Cy, what did you have for breakfast? Did you open the vents when you cooked?"

"Why the third degree this morning? You already jumped Megs, why not just let it go?"

"Because! Something here stinks like-"

Cassie's scream halted the quarrel almost before it began, as she fell back away from the package on the table, her hands up over her mouth. Turning away, she ran to Superboy who was watching her with wide eyes. "Cass, what is it? Another prank?"

"Guys, get the containment kits," Robin called, taking control of things before they could get more out of hand. His face was grim as he pulled a set of gloves from his belt and slipped them on, the Titans moving carefully, slowly to inspect the contents that would send Wonder Girl screaming and clinging to her lover so. The sight that greeted them wasn't pleasant, and Garfield found himself kneeling over a trash bin, knowing now why he had been assaulted with that carrion stench earlier.

Fingers. What had to be over a hundred of them. All various kinds, from index to thumb, but one thing similar between them all.

They had been forcefully ripped, broken free and torn loose of their moorings with great violence. No delicate surgeries, no less humane sawing. It looked as is half had the bones either neglected in their removal, or had taken the knuckles and deeper bones with them occasionally.

Starfire visibly greened at the sight, something she'd never seen quite the carnage of before. She was about to ask a question, wonder what could posses one to do something so horrible when another thought struck her. "Robin. Would not fingers from so many people be... well different?"

"I was thinking the same thing, Kori," the detective replied, waving the others back so as not contaminate the evidence. "Cy, lets get this to the lab. We need to figure out what's up here."

Nodding, the metal Titan gingerly lifted the table, not trusting himself to the box directly.

_OoO_

"William Madsen," Robin grimly stated, as he slipped a photo sheet onto the lightboard in the meeting room.

Superboy's brows furrowed, as he tried to identify the blonde in the picture. "Why does he look familiar?"

Cyborg just shook his head with an expansive sigh, his expression dire, "You wouldn't know him as well as us. We used to deal with him quite a lot, back in the day." Pulling up a file for the main screen, the cyborg thumbed through a number of files and finally pulled up an inactive folder and pulled the proper record. "He used to go by the moniker 'Billy Numerous', but went clean about three months ago, and has been on probation. He'd even signed up for a new treatment to minimize his powers, letting him lead a more normal life."

Megan's eyes widened slightly, at the mention of the victim's call name, "Billy? Wasn't he the multiplier? The guy who could duplicate himself?"

"Twelve times. Stably, he could do it twelve times, before things got odd, he would say," Robin replied, a new series of photos being placed up on the lightboard. "We have one-hundred and twenty digits here. Someone knew his limits.

"The worst thing, is that Billy's power was unique among the few duplicators on record," Robin continued, running a hand through his hair as he imagined the things his once enemy had gone through, leading to this meeting. "Billy's clones all could understand, see, hear and feel the things that went on with one another."

"Oh my god," Cassie darted from the room, looking nearly a shade to match Megan. Kon-el looked to want to go after, but Robin motioned for him to sit.

The young detective sat heavily, and shook his head. "This is bad. We haven't had a killer in this area, in a long time. Nothing like this at least." He pulled up a list of probable suspects, all people that had suffered at the Hive's hands during Billy's time with the organization. The list was huge, and despite the filters that Robin applied to narrow the field, the possibilities were daunting. "Assuming it was a revenge hit, these are the recorded victims of the Hive while it was active. As you can see..."

Garfield shook his head, still scrolling through the list on his personal screen, "There's no way we can check all these."

"Agreed, but what about the package, Robin?" Starfire seemed to be taking things better than the rest, but she was still shaken. Proof of this being that she had walked to the meeting, rather than her usual glide. "Would not the box have some clues?"

Looking disgusted a moment, he tossed a clipboard on the table and shook his head, "Nothing. It was clean. Like it had been in a sterile room before it arrived here, in fact."

"How is that possible," Cyborg knew how hard it was to transport material in a sterile environment, and this just didn't match up with how things had appeared. "How could they have gotten it to the Tower, by mail, and it be sterile like that? Completely clean!"

"I don't know," Robin admitted after a moment. That one comment cost him as well, knowing full well they had a mystery that would not be easily solved on their hands. There was one more thing that he had to share though, that was weighing on him. The worst of bad news, and he was having problems settling his stomach to do so. "There's one more thing. I did some tissue tests on the... evidence," his hand straying to his eyes, Robin just let his words come, shaking his head slowly. "From what I could tell, by the trauma to the tissue, the spread of necrosis in cells and the residual blood flow, these were taken why Billy was alive."

Garfield closed his eyes and looked away, as his mind tried to cope with the news. "Could he still be alive," he asked finally, taking a long moment to still his gorge. Nausea had been creeping up on him all morning, and this meeting was doing nothing to contain it.

Shrugging, their leader only looked back up at the smugly smiling blonde in the photograph. "I don't know. And I don't know if we should hope for it either," he admitted grimly. "There's no way to trace the box. No clues on the evidence, nothing. We have nothing, except those fingers."

"So there's nothing, no way to figure out where he could be held? Where he is?" Garfield threw the small printout he'd been looking over away, shaken at the violence of the act, and his own sense of helplessness. Not since Slade had they dealt with so little to work with, and then they at least had motive and a face.

Cyborg's eye narrowed, as his mind settled on what was bothering him about this situation. He hoped he was wrong... "Robin, this stinks like... Why would they send those to us? Why Billy?"

"Because this won't be the last of these. They – whoever did this to Billy, knew him. Knew of him. And us.

"This is only just beginning."

_OoO_

Not so far away, Raven perched on a familiar building, her lips slightly crooked in a grin. The expression didn't reach her eyes, still locked into their demonic semblance. The pearly orbs turned to look behind her, at the figure sitting against one of the ruined structure's walls. The wind picked up, as the light clouds, little more than a dusting of deeper blackness in the night, crept over the stars.

She breathed deep. The air, clean and cold stilled the turmoil in her. The voices were quieting, after her... atrocity. "Was he to your satisfaction?" she asked simply, not bothering to look at the woman there. The wind, crisp as it was, didn't stir her cloak, as the shroud seemed weighted. A passing plane, it's lights still bright despite the distance cast her in a brief glow, and the deeper black lining the tattered trail of the garment's edge seemed to darken the rubble wetly as she glided over it toward her... employer.

Jinx was still looking at her hand. Her whole, _human_ hand. She held it up and compared the pale digits to the others, something bubbling up inside her.

Laughing, she nodded. "Very much so. Very much so," she crooned, her eye damp with things she couldn't name, emotions she wasn't sure of. She had her hands back!

And yet, Billy was dead. There was no long or short about it. She'd insisted Raven let her watch, as the smug, filthy bastard screamed and begged.

All twelve of him.

Jinx had been surprised at the meticulous nature Raven had taken. The demon hadn't been gentle. Jinx would have been shocked, had she not been witness to her own ruining. He had been held up by magics she couldn't imagine, separated forcefully like peeling an onion.

And then the screaming began in earnest. It didn't end for a long, long time. Long enough for Jinx to fall into a contented, dreamless sleep. She'd woken to the sounds of dripping, and looked with bleary eyes at Raven's work, from the old, ratty couch she'd fallen asleep on.

Billys adorned the walls, strung up by wire and hooks as they swayed slightly, from the moorings adjusting to the ever-changing weight of them, as fluids and blood leaked and settled. Staring, she took the scene in woodenly.

She was reminded of something, that as a small girl she'd done. The first time she'd been given paint, and a canvas. She's plied at it inexpertly, finding out how the brush worked. How not to stroke the canvas. How to properly load the bristles with pigment. She had that same feeling, looking at one Billy, then another, then another. Each one seemed more... finished.

Complete.

Jinx knew, somewhere deep inside her, that the abject inhumanity that had been visited on the former Hive student should have shocked her. Her lip quirked at the memory of that fleeting itch. She'd stilled it by screaming her own memories in it's face. A ruined body. A dead child. Empty eyes of a lover. Herself used, broken, then discarded. It quieted quickly. Those same things though, her justifications and stains, also quieted as the blood dripped down off the walls. It cleansed her, she realized. Washed some of the hate and cancer that had been eating at her from her soul.

What it was leaving, clean, she could care less. What was done, was done. And there was so much more to do.

Looking at her hand once more, she giggled and worked those new digits again. It felt new, real and perfect. There was even the small scar from when she'd fallen on a sharp stone, so long ago. "How did you do this?"

A grin split Raven's lips, as she curled in against herself, resting against the wall beside her employer. She'd stopped bothering to manifest limbs unless she needed them. She was content to be a shadow, a face within it, now, until more was needed. Regardless she still let the Bloodmoon glint against her darkness, a reminder. "Lets just say, I'm learning many things about myself these days."

Jinx purred and cradled her new flesh, nodding, eager for the coming day. For more screams and another night of peaceful sleep without nightmares.

Beside her, Raven's mind swam in a sea of blood and death and flesh turned into so much meat, and she mirrored some of her company's thoughts. A new day, brought new prey. She took a deep breath, and smiled.

-

* * *

A/N: Small credits to Saberhagen for part of the chant. I realized that I used some of it from memory, once I decided on a cadence. I think two lines. I forget the source, sadly.  
Oh, and for those that read other of my works, there will be updates. I'm back from home, finally, with a head full of noise to still.


	3. Chapter 2

_**Vermilion Ascendant**_

_Chapter Two_

"Baran."

The diminutive form paused, then proceeded to continue, poking and prodding at the massive form lounging on the couch three more times before a string of remarkably foul cursing could be heard. "Damnit," the smaller form swore again, realizing that his efforts were still proving vain."Baran! This is important, get up!"

"Shorty, may wanna make sure you check the easy things," a voice quipped from behind Mikron, startling him terribly.

Hand over his heart, the youngest of the Hive fell backwards and slammed his head against the table. Muttering more curses, he saw Paperdoll stroll over, and pluck the earplugs out of Mammoth's ears. Leaning down, she grinned ingratiatingly and murmured a very soft "Baran," and was rewarded with the man immediately opening his eyes.

"Hrrmm... Morning Paper. Giz, what are you doing on the floor?" Still waking, the large man wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Gizmo muttering something about a can of gasoline and a zippo, but dismissed it to his usual ranting. "What's up with him?"

Shrugging, the waspishly thin woman settled on a chair and idly fidgeted with her sleeves. The costume was simple, typically spandex with a panel motif. The effect made her look like a badly folded bit of origami, until she activated her powers. "He said something was important, but the little brat didn't say anything more." Grunting, Mammoth rose and stretched briefly, moving rather quickly for his bulk. His size was unusual, as was his strength, but despite it all he still moved with a rather fluid grace. Paperdoll openly stared, before she noticed him starting off. "Hey, where are you going?"

"He said it was important," was the short answer, as the man strode down the hallway, still cracking various joints and rousing himself from the nap.

Staring at the open door a moment more, Paperdoll swore and slammed a suddenly razor-thin hand into the arm of her chair. Startled, she picked at the fluff that erupted around her hand as the limb easily cut down into the frame, the annoyance still clear on her face. "Bad enough I'm two dimensional, but he makes me feel transparent," her words punctuated her actions, as she tried to mend the chair as best she could.

Gizmo had settled on one of the chairs of his room's lab side, and was discontentedly prodding a small bowl of gel with an electrode. The stuff quivered and jumped at each contact, a behavior he found soothing considering his annoyance. Easily tiring of the action after a few minutes, the young genius turned to work on another project when he spied Baran standing in the doorway. "'Bout time you got up, lazy oaf."

"Morning to you too, small fry," voice still coarse from sleep, Mammoth none the less picked a delicate path to the room's other chair, and sat. "What's up?"

The diminutive genius ignored him for a few moments before sighing and tossing a nearby newspaper his way. Mammoth's brow rose, as he watched the odd blankness on Gizmo's face, before looking over the article that was obviously the source.

It wasn't front page news, but the article had that sensationalist cast to it. He glossed over the inflammatory wording and the obvious conjectures and looked one more time at the picture, making sure. "Old photo... but yeah. Madsen. Damn."

"Someone did it last night. I started doing some digging, these fucking rags tell you nothing," to prove his words, the whiz kid swiveled his chair and stabbed a stubby finger into a row of buttons on a keypad. Baran settled back as one of the monitors, springing from the walls like some kind of weird fungus, blinked to life. "Got the police records, and the call in. Take a look."

Mammoth was already reading the articles and scans, that showed up. The information wasn't pretty, by any means. "Calls started at eight thirty, but police were... unable? Huh?"

"Means they couldn't find the goddamn place. Here, listen," another button was pressed, and Gizmo unplugged his headphones, letting the speakers carry the sound.

"...patch, having trouble locating the address on the call, please confirm.

"Car 04, call is at Anderson, Alpha, November... block five. Address it fifty third and Anderson. Come back.

"Got it, Anderson and fifty third." A pause here, as the timer ran a few moments. Baran's brow rose as the first communication repeated... with exactly the same tone. He looked to Gizmo but his eyes widened in surprise when the police dispatch also repeated their own directions, with no hint of exasperation, annoyance or surprise at the patrol car's query. Gizmo ran the tape in fast forward a few minutes, and he could easily make out the patter of the same call, over and over, with it's matching response. After a solid five minutes of this accelerated playback, Gizmo halted the tape and set it to play normally. The tape continued. "...Car 04, disturbance has ceased, be advised.

"Confirmed, returning to patrol. Car 04 out."

"What was going on there, Giz?"

Shrugging, the youngest of the Hive shook his head. "Scary thing? I'm not sure." Closing the playback, he started scanning through some reports as well. "Here we have a noise report. Another. Another... two blocks, Baran. Almost a dozen reports from about a block around this place, and no one could find it."

Heaving a sigh, the large man ran a hand through his hair, "You think it's a hit?" The possibility was always there. Some other group, trying to assert their own power base, or undermine theirs. Sometimes, people just got pissed. The worst was when Slade was active, back years ago. He'd made a habit of the "My way or the highway" mentality, on his personal vendetta. This, he had to admit though, didn't feel like anything he'd dealt with yet.

"Hits don't... do the shit that happened. Paper was a bit slack, here. Hope you haven't had breakfast..."

He hadn't, but it did little good. "Holy Jesus..." He flipped through the photos, prints of what Gizmo had found. Mammoth imagined that he'd made them so he didn't have to look at the gruesome display each time he told someone... which brought to mind, "Who else knows?"

"Just you, and me and whoever's read the paper. This," waving a hand, the young genius scrubbed it over his head slowly, "Just us."

"Keep it that way, for now," Mammoth replied, going back to looking over the photos, for something, some hint at what could have done Billy like this. "This looks like one of those serial deals. Anything that matches?"

Shaking his head slowly, Gizmo could only point out the obvious. "He'd... they really did a number on the bastard. Not one of the bo... copies," Baran could hear the little man stifling his nausea. "None were done the same. The only thing... the fingers. Whoever did this took his fingers. All of them."

"Jesus," Mammoth growled, throwing the photos down on the table.

"Don't think he's got anything to do with this," was Gizmo's quiet reply.

_OoO_

"Any news?"

Robin looked up and met Cassie's gaze, the superpowered woman looking remarkably better today, after the ordeal yesterday. Pinching the bridge of his nose, the young man shook the headache this problem was forming from the forefront of his mind and favored her with a slight smile. "Nothing much. Still running some material tests."

"Material tests?"

Nodding, the young man stood and beckoned her over, pointing to a table to the side of the room, adorned with a computer terminal and some other equipment. "There's never been a perfect crime." Raising his eyes from the table, Robin regarded her evenly, "Never."

Shrinking from the glare slightly, Wondergirl simply turned her attention to the readout, blinking lazily on the terminal arranged there. Winking at her slowly in the rooms antiseptic light, a number of formula rotated, each connected to different small picture, which in turn were labeled. She didn't miss the many question marks, that also arrayed on the screen opposite more labeled pictures.

Neither did she miss the fact almost all the pictures were of the gruesome, bloody ends of the digits that they'd found in that box, only yesterday morning. "I see. What makes you say that? What did or um, didn't you find?"

Sitting down by the keyboard, Robin cleared the screen's rotation display and had the files stack neatly to the side. "Found? Very little, which in itself says much." Pointing to the largest graph, the detective tapped a finger along it's length. "Ninety eight percent of the amputations occurred, without a discernible source."

Cassie's brow furrowed, and she blinked at him confusedly, pulling up the second chair. "How... what does that mean? Is it like... they used gloves, or machines?"

"More... indistinct than that. Gloves, for instance," pointing at the trunk of a finger, he ran the tip along the pictures curve. "There would be a specific point of stress. Think of a hand like a softer kind of wrench. Now, like a machine, if you used one to do this, you'd see trauma from the pressure, correct?"

"Oh. Oh, I understand now."

Nodding, Robin set the pen down and leaned back with a sigh. "Now, what I meant when I said nothing... is exactly that. There is no sign of irregular trauma. No pinch points, no sign of force even. Under tensile conditions, each digit seemed to be removed in exactly the same way, but due to the human body's differences, the reactions wouldn't be the same.

"More disturbing, are the chemical analyses. Adrenaline levels, other blood chemical levels, time-to-death and cell necrosis. To make this short," tapping the other graph, Robin paused. She looked over and saw that what she'd taken for one very thick bar, was in fact over one hundred small ones.

"You're shitting me..."

"The same time. All of them."

Cassie's eyes went wide, as she looked more closely at the other data displayed. Robin nodded solemnly and just settled back again, eyes unseeing but on the screen as well. "It's... hard. It's the least and most at the same time, that I've had to work with. So much information, but there's just... none of what I need!"

Staring up at the ceiling lights, he missed the shadow that crossed his teammates face when he was talking, the paleness that crept over her. "So what are you saying? Some... mysterious force just ripped this William Madsen's fingers off, and mailed them to us?"

Robin started, something she was so unused to that she jumped in turn. He looked at her, the screen, then back at her again and he started laughing, slow and mirthless. "Some, mysterious force. Cass?"

"Wuh?"

"You're brilliant. Get the Titans, meeting in five," when she paused, still blinking at him in surprise and confusion, he leaned close and she snapped attentive, before he raised his voice and yelled, "Go!" in a voice that rang around the room.

Cassie Sandsmark went.

_OoO_

"It's a magician."

The other Titans stared at him as the words poured out in a rush, practically as they all entered the room. "Robin, calm down. Step one," Cyborg prompted, as the group stalled a moment and then proceeded to their seats. Motioning to the screen, he grinned and then reclined in his chair slightly. "Lets see the numbers. Impress us."

Chuckling darkly, the detective nodded to Cassie, and began. "Wondergirl actually clued me in. I'm so used to normal crimes, normal forensics, these days, with the roster lacking..." blinking a moment, Robin's mouth worked a moment, but he went on. "We'll get a JLA team on site soon. But for now, we need to focus on what we have, what we know."

Robin queued up the screen, and the data scrolled by, things he'd seen and researched, data he pulled from the broken parts of William Madsen correlated with the police as they found, later, the broken body they'd been taken from. Bodies. "No prints. No traces. No tools, no witnesses. Clean room.

"Impossible," shaking his head, Robin stood and went to the graphs, recanting his points to Cassie earlier, about a lack of force and discernible tools. "I wasn't thinking outside the box. Thinking this was a normal killer, if not a normal killing."

"We established last night," Garfield added, looking over a printout that he'd ordered from the computer, "that this wasn't normal."

Cassie stood, taking the floor a moment. "I looked over the data Robin had gathered, before the meeting. The things up on the screen," she pointed, to make her reference and keyed the screen to the graphs. "There's way too much going on here, as far as data, to ignore. I didn't get it initially, but it's pretty easy once you see the pattern.

"Robin was pointing out the lack of any kind of tool used, but that's not really correct. There are tools we don't have forensic data on." To emphasize her point, she pulled a her lasso free, and stretched a length between her hands, a moment later it crackled with electric force. "I could, for instance, electrocute someone, in the middle of a blackout. The desert. A rubber room, even."

Cyborg nodded and let loose a small laugh, "Bingo. You got it, that's why everyone was stumped. It's not like the PD's got a magical investigation team. The best they have, is us."

Starfire just sat quietly, staring forward a moment. "And we are lacking. You mean, that someone who uses magic did this, and that is why we received the clueless box, and how Billy..."

"That's my guess. Of course, the only evidence... is the lack of it," Robin replied. "I placed the call to the Watchtower. I'm-" the main monitor flashed with a small note, in the corner that resembled the JLA logo. "Waiting on this reply, actually."

The collected Titans sat, as Robin keyed up the screen, and was met with the face of the Martian Manhunter. "Greetings, Robin."

"Morning, John. I hope this is in regard to the request I sent in, earlier," the detective began, striking to the heart of the matter quickly. The scent was still fresh, he noted. He wanted to get to the scene with a team that could track the killer down, before someone else died.

"Indeed, this is no social call. But there is another reason, for my contacting you," the Manhunter seemed to pause, his expression going very still. "I have some grave news." Robin's face went ashen, but he didn't pause, nodding for the man to continue without looking away. "First though, you will be receiving backup, an appropriate team equipped to deal with assisting the investigation.

"Second, I regret to inform you that Rachel Roth is unaccounted for."

_OoO_

"What are we doing here?" Shivering despite the long coat she wore, the young woman peered about the hotel room, curious but stunned by the squalor and filth that seemed to be a part of the décor, bleeding along the walls like sweat on a glass of water. The windows were brown and hazed, the air still and dank and smelled like a thousand unwashed bodies.

On top of it all, she could literally hear the insects, shifting in the walls like some kind of unholy pulse. "I don't understand why we came here," she reiterated again, sitting gingerly on a ratty, half-broken couch. The thing sagged and made a sighing noise, spewing dust and gods knew what into the air. Jinx had covered her mouth by instinct, but shrugged and dropped her it to her side. She flexed her fingers, the metal creaking quietly as it had done for what seemed, to her memory, a lifetime.

"Well, we couldn't very well stay on that rooftop forever, could we?" A smirk painted on her lips, Raven lounged indolently on the bed, central to the room. She tossed an arm out and tendrils of black smoke wrapped around the lamp, extending from her fingertips and snapping the bulb with a muted pop. "Besides, I mentioned terms. As much as my... father's kind seem to cherish souls for whatever reason, I have no desire to steal yours away."

Her vision, though halved, hadn't lessened in the time since she'd last seen her demonic companion. The loss of the admittedly yellowing and ancient bulb meant little to her cat's eye. "Then why did you agree?"

"We both want something." Jinx started, as four slits of white blinked back at her, easily seen over the bed. She could pick out Raven's lounging form, by playing a twisted game of connect-the-dots, after all. Her Anja gem, the four eyes, the exposed facets of the summoning's focus – the points painted her as laying in an artist's pose, recumbent and with the lilt to her words, apparently smiling.

Shaking off the small seed of terror that had sprouted in her breast, Jinx stared back into those empty pits, and shrugged, unimpressed despite her fear, "Yeah. I want people dead. But I guess that's the easy part, huh? What about you, Raven? Lets stop playing games here."

"Games..." the half-demon let the word trail off, into a hiss as if tasting it. "Indeed. My apologies. I've had so little conversation I was wont to draw things out, but I can understand the nature of your recent work, the... impetus. Terms, then," pausing Raven stood, and Jinx saw her cross, to kneel before her, a very strange sight as all she could fix upon were those six lights, shifting about.

Her unease must be palpable, Jinx thought to herself. Raven less stood and walked, as flowed around in the darkness. She could imagine that those points of light were the only tangible parts of the demoness, with the room cast in such gloom. That the darkness only seemed to deepen around them just affirmed her ideal. "What do you want, Raven?"

"I want..." the eyes narrowed, and something seemed to dim them, before Jinx reared back, as they blazed red a moment, and she felt a wash of heat pour over her face. Raven's features, faint and pale in her own light, sat rigid and set around those windows. "I want them. I don't know after, but I want to talk, listen... more. I don't know what else yet. I can't agree."

"The Titans?"

"Yesss..." those eyes, white and shifting Jinx saw in the darkness, narrowed as the demoness hissed the word slowly. "I want to know why. From them. Then... then I'll know what I want."

Laughing quietly, Jinx hazarded a hand out and found it resting against what felt like cloth. Her cloak. "You still don't... listen.

"I could tell you what you want, because it's the same thing I want, but what good would that do?" The broken woman rose unsteadily, pacing about the broken plaster and discarded debris in the room. She wanted something to do, to move, it helped her think. "You got locked away and forgotten. It hurt – they were your friends. Associates. Who cares. Point is, they fucked you. Now you're out. What you want, is to balance the scales."

Caught up in her own rambling, the former thief didn't see that Raven had 'stood', her eyes going level with Jinx's as she paced about like a rat in a cage. "What part of you is demon, huh?" Laughing, she leaned on a peeling wall and looked Raven, who had slid up right beside her, in the eye, unflinching. "What did you find out, after fucking your dad like a bitch?"

Raven was quiet a moment, but then the eyes, which Jinx hadn't seen blink yet did so. "I liked it."

"Liked it? That's it? You _liked it_?" Laughing in the shadow's face, Jinx pushed off the wall and shouldered past where Raven was roughly. "All that power, that knowing that you were free, done and all on your own, finally, and you _liked it_?" Turning, she threw her hands up, stepping back as the motion offbalanced her. "Fuck!

"I can't even summon a goddamn demon that'll do the work," she murmured, raking a hand through her hair savagely.

Raven stood, the voices screaming everything from wanting the thief's blood for the insult to heartily agreeing with her. "I get it. You want to know if I can kill your enemies, when I can't even fathom doing so to mine."

"Ya think?"

"It's a valid concern," the half-demon admitted, a chuckle escaping her lips. "You always did have the gift with points. Always right to the heart of things. Very well... you want assurance. Tonight then. I'll do the first tonight..." reaching up, she placed a hand on the gem embedded in her chest and let a face come to mind, all the hate and anger and loss having charged the gem with all she needed. A face, framed with a smirk and blonde hair entered her mind and she grinned slightly. "And let me reassure you.

"There isn't anything human, left here," claws of the stuff of nightmare and chill settled on Jinx's shoulder, spinning her about to face the demoness. The former thief stumbled, but those same talons supported her as she stood unsteadily. "I was unmade, when I killed him. Killed? Who knows. But what I was stopped, and what I am began. Maybe that's why they abandoned me. Fear. Hate. I'm a demon after all, half or not." Her words were quiet, but Jinx didn't care. It was like each image, each thought behind them was laced with iron and then pressed to her skull. It felt full of spikes as she listened, all insisting on showing her things, but there wasn't enough brain to impale after a point and she groaned, falling.

Raven let her go.

"You were right though, to worry. Maybe I need to find out myself, if I can do this. Terms, then.

"I will kill for you. Take them as agreed, those you named. In return, I'll take my own stake, a part and parcel of each, to do with as I will. Is this agreeable?"

"What about the ceremony?" the thief mumbled, still trying to gather herself from the floor where her weakness had left her, a puppet with it's strings cut.

Shrugging slightly, Raven slid down and rested before the other woman. "My freedom... perhaps it is enough. But if you insist so on death when this is done, then so be it. I leave that choice, to you. Call me sentimental, but you at least I know, and for all you summoned me out of an impossible prison somehow, you could have been another. But if you choose death, then so be it. I don't care."

Pausing, something ticked at Raven's memory, and she smiled, the glimmer of her eyes picking out rows of teeth between Cupid's bow lips. "Perhaps you'll change your mind, in time." Turning, she looked out the dingy window, the cities lights painting her in the tones of dried blood and ash. "As for me... I'll send them a message. See if they can listen. And if not..."

Jinx slid back against the wall and rubbed at her temple, deciding it was a bad idea to goad the demoness. Her concerns and anxiety aside, it was obvious Raven had changed, if only evidenced by her appearance, the way she acted now. She dismissed her concerns, and focused on what Raven was saying, instead. "If not, what?"

"I'll simply speak louder."

_OoO_

"Listen."

Jinx turned and rubbed the sleep and grime from her eyes, her lips turning up as she felt the skin on her hand, rather than metal. "Hmm? To what?" The cloaked form raised arms, and gestured about her. The hotel room had gained some more color, after their return, the trailing blood from Raven's cloak never seeming to dry. It was curious, but Jinx discarded the question of why. It simply wasn't important.

"Everything. There is no living thing, that does not make a sound. This place, a city, is a living thing," she murmured, and Jinx was reminded again that this was a person, a demon, that was even back when she was whole and working with those she had loosed this horror to kill, that had been unstable. Things had only gotten stranger, since Billy's death.

She'd watched as Raven used her cloak, blackness pulled from her own body as it wore such like a shroud and clothing now, to vivisect the multiplying man. And she'd also watched the fascination, the intent focus Raven had paid to each cut and tear, each drop of blood that had fallen from those wicked talons.

Then Raven had took Billy's fingers – all of them. All at once. She'd spread her cloak out and it had unmade itself into a thousand strands, all of which wrapped around some part of the dozen forms, pinned and hooked and suspended in that dark place that had become his tomb.

A moment had passed, when it seemed that she had reconsidered. Then the sound... so much flesh being rent apart, bones separated, tendons snapped and torn.

Billy had screamed. Raven had smiled.

Raven had went to work in earnest then. Hours later, Jinx had awoken, somehow sleeping and sleeping well during his many deaths. Her hand, had been waiting for her. Despite that gift, that miracle the young woman had been wary, careful around the demon. How many stories that told of those summoning the infernal, ended happily? Ended with the summoner alive, at all?

Not that it should matter, though. Her intended bargain was essentially an eternity of being some hellish thing's chew toy.

She noticed Raven's eyes on her, and started back to the here and now, "I don't understand. What am I listening for?"

"You're the thief. Stop thinking, and listen. Tell me what you hear."

"City sounds, I mean what..." quieting with a sigh, Jinx did as she was asked. She let her awareness spread out and the first thing, a police siren passing by, caught her ear. Downstairs a baby had been crying, she had heard it earlier – maybe even as long ago as yesterday. An old man was snoring, wetly, somewhere to her left. Upstairs somewhere was the noise of something rutting noisily, on an unsteady bed. The insects as always, were moving, breeding inside of and eating the very walls that contained them. Televisions blared, in all directions. She could hear more sirens, far off. Someone was beating their wife or husband – she could only hear the meaty impacts of hands on flesh, and indiscernible grunting and cries. There was a sound like a child's toy, chiming. It sounded as sick as her stomach, then.

Her eye snapped open. All that. And more.

"You see... What does it mean, what can it do... all this misery." Something syrupy was in Raven's words, and it curdled in Jinx's ears. "All this pain, in one place. I never thought about it. Let it wash off me before. I was above it all," laughing darkly, the former hero laid a hand on the wall, pressing hard so that it sank into the weak plaster, the wound there erupting with crawling things that she seemed uncaring of.

Jinx flinched. "You knew? I mean... I guess you should right?"

"Indeed. I should, should have thought about it more, in fact, but no. I've been... blind. A long time blind. Focusing on the good, on the right. That ideal, that greater good. But now..." she looked back at Jinx then, as something pulsed from the demoness, and all the crawling things, all the horde of unseeable things went still, to Jinx's ears.

"Is that why? Why you were a hero, despite being half demon?" She hazarded, and listened to the world around her again. The noises from all around were growing faint, distant almost. She also... reaching up a hand strayed to her temple, as something pressed in on her. Pressure built, and with it came a noise, like the whine of an old television. A hundred, million of them, all screaming down a tunnel that was funneling into her mind-

And she was sitting, in a chair as Raven was across from her, doing a sudoku puzzle in the newspaper. Jinx looked about her quickly, scanning the room with a wide eye as she stumbled and nearly fell from the chair. "What?"

Raven regarded her for a long moment, then went back to her puzzle. She did speak to the thief as she cast about, mind racing. "You passed out. I was... working on something. The backlash must have affected you

"What the hell?" the edge of panic in her voice deepened, as she rested her eyes on the hole in the wall that Raven had made earlier. Things moved in it. Things much larger than insects, cockroaches and the centipede's she'd known were there. Things that knew she was looking at them, and looked back with unblinking, empty white eyes.

Laying down her pen, the demon looked up and smiled quietly, and Jinx noted that she could see the other's skin more clearly than since they'd spoken on the roof, last night. She nearly resembled her old self, but for the ever-present eyes, and the shrouding gloom that wafted off her form like smoke. Despite this small island of normalcy in what felt like an ocean of madness, Jinx was not comforted in the least, "I needed a place to work. So, I made some changes." Raven's words just spiked her anxiety, and she spent a long minute trying to stall her mind, keep the thoughts from running past in such torrents.

"Work? Raven things are getting very strange. I like, I mean thank you for my hand and all, but can you... what's going on? I didn't think this would take like..."

"Soul or not, did you really think this would be easy, for you?" leaning across the table, Raven's steady, empty eyes drilled into her easily. "Did you think that all this would pass by without touching you?"

The former Hive operative's mouth worked silently, before she took a breath and loosed it, stirring the darkness that flowed down the sides of Raven's face. "No. It's just more... intense than I thought. I don't know. It's just freaking me out a bit, how different you are, I suppose."

The demoness regarded her quietly, then nodded her head once. "I suppose so. This is just the beginning, Jinx. Are you prepared for the rest? Should I stop now?" Raven leveled a piercing, pointed gaze at her hand, the new one that Jinx still reflexively tensed and relaxed, as if convincing herself it wasn't a dream.

"No. I started this. I'm in for the ride."

"Good," Raven practically whispered, masking her relief easily. "We have company, by the way."

Starting, Jinx looked about her and saw that the room was different, but not so much that she'd miss someone else inside it. "What? Where?"

Rising, the demon strode off in her odd even pace to the door that was the closet for the small hotel room, something Jinx had easily avoided the last time. She had held no desire to stick her nose in a small, dark room in this place. Raven on the other hand seemed to gain a touch of excitement as she approached it. "I made some renovations, while you were napping."

Throwing the door open, Jinx blinked as the room on the other side of the door came to view. It looked to be inside a church, with the rows of pews and the long shelf up before the isle for benedictions. And wholly too large to fit in the space she knew the closet to contain."How..."

"It goes where I want it to. This place is drenched in sin, so when I let the forces that rule my powers spread out, they found it. I just made an anchor here, for convenience. This church, if you you'd believe it, is more vile than where we are now." Raven stepped through the odd doorway, and Jinx gingerly followed, curiosity getting the better of her. Her view of the room had been obscured by the small door frame, but opened up as they were inside.

Noise from the head of the room got her attention, and her eye widened with what she saw there. "Company..."

Raven's face split in a smile that had nothing to do with mirth. "Yes. I thought I should help them get... better acquainted."

_OoO_

"Man, I still don't know what to think about that."

Starfire turned her attention back to the driver, Cyborg, as the car sped down through the Bay city's streets at a breakneck pace. The rest of the mission team was there, in the spacious vehicle as it rumbled under them."About what, Cyborg?"

Garfield pratically withered her with a glare, before answering for the metal Titan, "About what? _Raven_, Star. About Raven."

"Nnggh!"

Conversation forgotten, Robin turned, as did all the Titans in the car, as the liason from the JLA doubled over in pain and reached out to the east, her hand wavering. Cyborg didn't need another hint, and changed directon quickly, trusting more information would come in time.

"Faith?" Cassandra Cain, accompanying her current partner to the west coast in hopes of tracking down hints of what happened to the prison in Arkham, laid a hand on the woman's shoulder and recoiled at the psychic backlash that hit her. "Stop the car!"

Sighing, Cyborg did as he was asked and the team disembarked, shuffling about as the current Batgirl tried to get something sensible out of the psychic that the Manhunter had sent them. "She going to be alright?"

"Yeah," Cassandra was ever the sparkling conversationalist, and the other Titans had become accustomd to the young heroine's terse replies and conversation after working with her in the past numerous times. Reading people was simply easier, and right now, Faith was telling her volumes.

Little help it was, as most of the words in them were "Ouch".

She knew the others were waiting on something, some explanation for her outburst. Honestly, Faith had not expected to assaulted with such a potent blast of... pain, until they were much closer to the crime scene. The problem was, she almost felt like the entire city was dying, and she poised over it like some kind of satellite. "Moment. Just need a moment to get myself in order."

Batgirl nodded, and looked about them, her eyes missing little. "Take your time," she said simply, and stayed by the other woman's side, as her posture went less rigid, her muscles stopping their pointless striving against one another. Faith was a sensitive, a tracker that had lost her other powers some time ago and was readjusting to the new range of her abilities. Having been called "The Fat Lady" for her tendency to end sorties with spectacular results, the moniker fit her not at all. Under her heavy coat, one could argue she barely existed.

Robin felt rather than heard his comm go off, and excused himself from the woman's side, to answer. "Robin here."

"Hey, Robin, it's Speedy. How's it going with your mystery killer?" The other young man's face practically mirrored his own, color of hair and the depth of frown lines the only differences, at a glance.

Robin sighed but shook his head in answer. "Not good. We were just on the way to the scene, when the JLA team had us stop. Something's up."

Nodding, the man on the other side, seemed to consider something a moment and pursed his lips, looking torn. "Man, I hate to bother you, but I just wanted to touch base on something. I'm sorry, really, but I need to get in touch with Eddie, if you see him. Something's up with Rose, and we wanted to let him know."

"Eddie? Bloomberg?" When Speedy nodded, Robin placed the face to the name and favored his east coast counterpart with a glare. "Seriously, I don't have time to play messenger boy to Red Devil. I'll let him know if I see him, but right now we don't have time to look for him. Just tell Rose to be patient."

A short laugh was his answer, "We talking about the same Rose right?"

"Robin out," the detective snapped, and stuffed the thing back in his pocket. "What's wrong?" Returning his attention to Batgirl, she motioned him over where the rest of his team was waiting.

Looking about nervously, obviously as unnerved by the woman's reaction, Batgirl was none the less not one to let her guard down. Particularly in a city that had seen all this one had. The woman favored Robin with a small shake of her head. "She's sensed something. Very bad, and to the east. She's going to take us there."

Robin looked to his team, and saw them all waiting. He'd left Wondergirl and Superboy at the Tower, to keep an eye on things, and Megan was on the citybeat, patrolling. The old veteran team was with him tonight, and he could see their eagerness to get this over with. Their city it may be, but this was dirty business, and no one wanted to spend all night picking apart a murder scene.

Particularly one with someone they knew, as it's recent inhabitant.

"Alright then, lets go."

The odd, stretching pull behind his navel signaled their teleportation to the new location, and Robin stared about himself, preparing for what may come.

The tolling of bells, high above but far too loud for comfort in such tense silence, tore a yelp from Starfire and Faith as they were gaining their bearings. The others cast about, ready for trouble but there wasn't anything to be seen, on the steps to a cathedral as they were. The impressive structure rose up, it's towers and buttresses a dance of strange curves and ornate masonry.

Cyborg was standing, rooted as he looked at the stained glass window that dominated the front of the grand structure. "Guys..."

The others looked to him, saw his expression and turned as well, searching out what was causing him to seem so disturbed.

**Day Two: Eddie and the Angel**

The team broke through the locks on the cathedrals great doors and ran down the aisle, but slowed as they did so, the spectacle there causing more than one to pause, if not stop completely.

Suspended there was a... tangle, of flaming skin, flapping wings and blood.

The normally innocent ironwork and chains, supporting the great chandeliers had been usurped, and in a great trellis-work of hooks, barbs and spreading struts of cold iron was transfixed the remains of Angel, from the Hive.

She wasn't alone there, though. Red skin and flayed flesh burned and smoked, as the other occupant of the wicked construct came into focus, the dual nature of the thing apparent now. Bits and ornaments of the church, ordained and holy icons were molded and formed into a matching crucible, onto which the body of the Titans East's Red Devil rested, flayed to the bone, skin peeled back to form a counterpoint to Angel.

Faith fell to her knees and wept, as the great thing turned, like a perverse windmill.

Robin stood, his mouth working silently as he saw the thing rotate again. The hooks and chains had been used to literally spread Angel like a canvas, her skin peeled back and held taut between them. He could see the small iron hooks that sewed her flayed skin into a shape, with her wings spread out behind her, the feathers still waving gently in the air as the motion of the machine continued. Literally stitched _through_ Angel, Eddie's demonic skin burned and hissed, reacting to the presence of sanctified ground and objects, all the while the same kept his flesh secured, unable to slip free. He was opposing her, skin peeled back into a kite-like shape as well, the two forming a mockery of a star of David.

If anything could make the tableau more grotesque, their fleshless bodies were left to the center, turned and angled by the one who'd placed them there, and done so in such a way as to imply the two mid coitus.

Robin blinked once, imagining the call he'd soon have to make. Imagining the gravity of the effect this would have on Speedy and Rose... and then his voice banished the silence. "Cut them down."

"B-But, Robin, the crime scene-" Garfield's mouth snapped shut when Robin's voice, loud enough to rattle the windows, repeated his order again.

In the end, only he and Cassandra had moved forward to tear down the macabre thing.

_OoO_

"I just don't understand... why Eddie?" Starfire's voice was soft, but the hurt in them was loud enough to hurt the ears. Her eyes traveled listlessly about the room, the meeting room currently serving duty as a hub for their data gathering and management. Corkboards had been erected, and notes posted there, while a whiteboard was over by the windows, details, correlation and photos along it's diameter like some kind of twisted halo.

Garfield sighed, and shook his head slowly as he worked to sort the many reports that needed filing for the scene, the Tower's systems bogged down with the sheer number of them. "Why Angel? She wasn't really even a real criminal... just a kid in the wrong place, wrong time. Her rap sheet's shorter than mine."

Starfire stared at the reports, unseeing as her teammate typed in the appropriate entries, over and over. "This makes no sense."

Something, though, ticked at the changeling's mind, and he had to disagree. "I don't know, Star. Something tells me this isn't as random as we think." He hoped he was wrong. Hoped that a ghost that he'd started dreaming about again had nothing to do with all the horror that was going on around them.

He hoped, but a quiet, sinister voice kept telling him that soon he'd _know_, and all his hope would mean little.

_OoO_

Jinx twisted her foot, bouncing on the ball of it slowly, untrusting of the new bone and muscle. She then stretched, reaching up as her calf protested, her leg extended so far that her entire body quivered, like a bowstring pulled too tight. Collapsing down, she breathed deep as the last of the tension drained out of her muscles.

"I take it you approve."

Looking up, she noted the disembodied face of Raven, drifting toward her in the gloom from the hallway. Below the apparition's chin, a red light glinted, stronger now. Jinx favored her with a nod and stood quickly, twisting her legs beneath her and letting the spin propel her in a ballerina's rise.

Raven looked her over, the corner of her lip rising fractionally. "Did it disturb you, my... work?"

sighing, Jinx slipped a hand through her hair and eyed the former Titan steadily for a moment. "Why did you do it, like that? Was it really needed?"

"Because I wanted to," the demoness replied evenly, her voice lacking inflection. "It was my desire to do so."

Staring slightly, Jinx looked back down at her leg, now whole and matching it's counter, and couldn't help but feel a seed of guilt rise up in her chest. It dulled her exuberance over regaining a large portion of her grace, and kept painting scenes of the desecration from earlier in her memory. "I just..."

"You wanted death. I pick the means..." Raven answered, not waiting for the young woman to finish. "That you regain what you lost as I work should still any hesitations, unless you'd prefer to keep those... improvements."

"No! No, I... I'm grateful. I am," she assured the shadow, as it wavered and shifted around those preternatural lights. "I'm grateful."

Nodding slowly, Raven reached out and ran a finger along the pale woman's chin, tilting her face up to the the level of her eyes. "Good. I'd hate if even my side work went unappreciated. Now, I've missed something, that you've reminded me of, in your stretching."

Jinx made a curious noise, as a table, with a record player slipped into the room through a shadow, settling nearby. Looking back at Raven she blinked, as the demoness seemed to solidify out of the air, a rather delicately laced and simple gown in place of her usual obscuring cloak of shadow. Liberal views of flesh were available, and dominating her neckline were the red glowing facets that signified their pact.

Raven held out a hand, and the smile that greeted Jinx as she hesitantly took it chilled her. The odd sense of distortion, dissonance that had washed over her earlier came again as the music began, just as it had when she slept, while Billy bled his many lives away. Something wasn't-

The music bubbled up along her spine, and she moved with it, humming along as her partner matched her movements moment to moment, the steps in quick time. She'd stretch and weave, lunge and feint and at each point, those four slashes in the fabric of her vision kept her, held her and served to show her the way forward. They dominated her. Embraced her. Coaxed and cajoled her to higher leaps and faster spins.

With a shadow trailing, curled about her like a ribbon, Jinx danced, and forgot the seeds of doubt that had settled in her heart. Forgot that each step she took, left a trailing of blood along the filthy tile of the room.

* * *

First round of edits complete.


	4. Chapter 3

_**Vermilion Ascendant**_

_Chapter Three_

_Earlier  
_Eddie Bloomberg was having a shitty day. "Goddamn it, where is the extinguisher?" Rifling about the headquarters' kitchen, he finally located the small cylinder and put his intended snack out of it's misery.

He never knew something could smell so vile when it burned. "So much for popcorn and a movie," he grumbled in annoyance. The DVD player and recreational room's large TV were his for the night, with team one on patrol, two people off on liaison with the JLA and one off visiting family. Some days it felt more like he was living in a college dorm than a fast-response emergency deployment station.

"What we are, I guess. Super EMTs!" Snickering, he gave the mass burning in the microwave one last blast from the extinguisher before setting it aside. "Windows," he muttered idly, walking over to the large wall of glass that let Titan's Tower East look over the New York skyline. The East river, ironically enough, was home to the East coast team. Eddie stretched in the low light leaking in from the outside and groaned, his muscles complaining at the tension. Sporting just his fireproofed cargo pants, his muscles and red skin gleamed slightly in the brief moonlight the window afforded, as he keyed the portals open.

_Vanity, despite knowing who you once were_. His brow furrowed, as the thought caught his attention from looking into, and out of the windows. Eddie lowered his hands from where they'd been, idly inspecting his horns. "It's not..." Shrugging, he dismissed the errant thought, and the flash of guilt in his mind from it. True, he's once been 'fully' human, but that was long ago, during his apprenticeship with Blue Devil. Back when he needed a silly powersuit to do the work of a hero.

_A hero, is that what you are?_ Turning quickly, Eddie cast his amber eyes about, wondering if he were hearing things. Scratching at his head when he found nothing, the Titan returned to his quest for a snack, cleaning up the kitchen quickly, and disposing of the foul smelling mess the popcorn had become. Humming as he worked, the demonic looking young man went about his work, this time making a sandwich. More work, he figured, but a bit more satisfying.

_Are you satisfied, with yourself?_ Closing his eyes tight, he stilled the anger that the errant thoughts were starting to bring on. Perhaps he needed to speak with the Doc soon, see if the stress was getting to him. Toting the meal to the other room, he briefly considered the question though, and decided quickly he wasn't interested in an answer. His deal, his bargain with Neron had left him much more than a man, but the cost of course, was his soul. _Not that you had a say, after a point in that though did you?_

His feet stalled, as a noise – no, as sensation, tugged at him. It was like that noise, he thought idly, returning his attention to his relaxation as he sat on the couch, that happens when you turn on an old TV. It wasn't terribly bothersome, just uncomfortable. Shaking his head hard now that he'd set his food down on the counter, he breathed a sigh and clicked on the television.

His finger worked the remote again. "Huh?" Looking the device over, he could see that the LED for the thing was working. Looking up at the machine itself, he grumbled. "Someone must have knocked a cable loose." Grumbling, he stood again and rounded to the back of the machine, stopping half way across the room, as he looked out the windows.

The night had gotten deeper, a deep enough darkness that he'd lost sight of the distant city. Brow furrowing, he crossed and passed a hand outside, feeling at the air. Cool, damp almost, and it smelled... stale. "Fog rolling in," he noted, and heaved a sigh.

Turning back to his task, he inspected the wiring, the odd feeling of discomfort and that pressure, the noise spiking a moment. Images, of Neron standing over him, his deal with the demon for something he already had, then adding in a few finishing touches flaring through his mind. Stumbling, Eddie braced himself on the wall and let his eyes refocus on the the wires before him. It had been a long time since he'd felt such an intense episode of memory, and it left him... drained. He remembered the pain, the wrenching as things inside him were undone and remade. Eddie shook his head hard and dismissed all the imagery, aggravated at his own weakness. "Ugh, glad the others aren't here. Never hear the end of this from Rose."

Thoughts of the young woman brought a brief smile to his face. In his time with them, she'd been his most consistent friend and ally, and in time that friendship had grown into a tentative romance. He was still worried about his nature, being innately inhuman and what it entailed, for them. With a smile, he remembered her little nickname for him, 'Hot Stuff', and chuckled slightly.

Seeing nothing wrong with the back of the machine, he furrowed his brow in confusion, trying to think about what could be keeping the machine from working. _Demons don't love._ His eye ticked, as images of Rose were banished from his mind, that thread of thought slipping between his thinking like an unwelcome guest. Shrugging, annoyance clear on his face, he mumbled his opinion, "Well, I guess it's good that I'm just a meta then, with a twist."

_Oh, but you like this image. Being the bad boy_. Running a finger along his temple, Eddie stood and inspected the bottom of the console's front, wanting to just get back on the couch and ignore his obnoxious idling thoughts. "I am what I am," he grumbled, keying on everything manually once more. The DVD started, the stereo crackled once as it powered up. The monitor was just being stubborn. "C'mon, I'd really like to watch this."

"There isn't anything good on," a voice replied, and he looked up in surprise, the pressure, the noise that he'd nearly forgotten snapping back into his brain like a needle.

Four white slashes, seeming like nothing more than blank slits, regarded him from the screen. Stifling a yell, Eddie stumbled back and tripped on the table, falling onto the couch. "What the-"

"...hell?" the voice offered, as Eddie tried to regain his footing. The couch resisted his efforts, and he looked down with brief disbelief as shadows lengthened and creeped up and around his prone arms, wrapping around them drawing him tighter to the cushions. Those strange marks on the screen seemed to waver and lose focus, as they passed from the screen into the room.

Eddie's mouth had gone dry, as he watched the thing that seemed to suck inward on itself pulling threads of shadow till the slashes, eyes regarded him from a hooded darkness. "Wha-what do you want?"

That form seemed to him, to regard him with an intensity. "Practice."

"Wha-" his voice cut off as the thing glided forward suddenly, cold, damp air surrounding him suddenly. His eyes snapped to the windows, and he would have screamed if his mouth weren't covered, invaded by the stifling, textureless cold that seemed to be holding him down.

Thousands of eyes, all blank white and dead stared back at him, from the glass that surrounded the room.

"I have such things to show you," the voice promised, as Eddie Bloomberg, recently known since his power's awakening as Red Devil, tried to scream again as the thing before him pressed forward and he had a flash of realization. The voice was never his. His eyes rolled up, as something sharp and jagged slipped along the center of his forehead, leaving a trail of pain and warmth behind it. "No, there were no voices in your mind, dear, sweet Eddie. Such a silly man... playing at being the devil." There wasn't anger, or incrimination in the voice, as again he felt, or heard? Something...

He wasn't back at the Tower anymore. His body felt... light. A brief flick of terror crept over him as he realized he couldn't move but-

A noise, like a stutter and a cough slipped past his lips as in instinct his body tried to flinch from the sensation it was being assaulted with. "Shh.. shhhh.. " the voice was crawling in his ear, and he would have sold his soul again to reach up and dig at the organ, trying to dislodge that creeping wrongness that filled him at it's sound. Thoughts of the voice dimmed, as something seemed to tug at his scalp, and a small sucking noise distantly registered to him. Vaguely, he was aware of his body jerking in the grip of some... thing.

The air itself was his enemy. Everything, every contact his skin had was holding him, as if this place were made of pressure, those four slashes into a frozen hell, and pain. "Poor, delusional Eddie... you thought to sell your soul for power, for a chance. Tch." Something was wrong, with the feel of the back of his head. He wanted to move his hands, to guard himself, to curl into a ball and close his eyes but even the impulse to blink was denied, the nowhere he was in keeping even that from him. "Silly, silly Eddie. It was never yours, to sell."

A... _tug_, like something pulled at all his muscle's strings at once surged through him, starting at the crown of his head. A whimper spat from his lips, as those eyes came close, _so close_. He could see, from the light reflecting off his own face, a lurid red on pale skin, the face before him. That effect, the red on smooth skin, above an uneven, grinning maw of darkness below those eyes did nothing for him, and his eyes rolled, the only thing he could do, held fast as he was. "No voices, sweet Eddie," the mouth worked, and words happened but he was losing his ability to know what they meant.

A black something, like a claw or mass of tumorous flesh, pulled his attention as the thing brought a small, wet thing up to his eyes. "See Eddie? No voices here." A languid, slow motion followed as a small, delicately pink tongue flicked out from between the speaker's lips, tasting what rested in it's hand. Suddenly Eddie's eyes spasmed, as he understood the horrid implication of those words, and what sense of self he had screamed and clawed at the reality of the moment, trying to break free. "Such sweet memories..." the voice murmured, before the void overtook him, and Eddie was no more.

OoO

News had spread, as it tended to in small, close communities. The Hive and HAEYP alumni had such a thing, a network that moved information, points of interest between themselves in times of need. Currently, the defacto leader of their rag-tag group was sitting in his chair, looking over the gathered faces, all looking up and around at the slightly too-small room with a spectrum of emotions.

Mikron looked over the teeming mass and sighed. "Lets get this shit-storm out of the way, so I can clean the floor afterward, you animals."

The temperature in the room fell a solid five degrees, as the collected attention of the group shifted to the diminutive person that sat before them. If there was one thing, that most villains and some heroes respected, it was brutal, efficient and overwhelming power. What Mikron, Gizmo to some, had idly grasped in his hand was the epitome of all three. Since things had started getting him spooked, he's taken to carrying it, and unlike his usual inventions, this things didn't seem at all subtle. Someone had asked him what the things was, and he'd shrugged idly, giving off a rattling steam of cursing and scientific jargon that sounded more like a chemistry experiment. He amended that, after and simply called it a BFG. Those who had arrived, didn't miss the massive scorch-blasted crater in the yard, where it looked like something had been detonated.

"What's up, Gizmo," a voice, See-more he decided as the group kept on it's droning hum of conversation, spoke above the clamor.

Gizmo keyed the comm, and the feedback that he knew would issue from it silenced the room. A round from his weapon, humming in quiet menace was also chambered for effect. He needed the floor for a while, after all. "Can't hear myself think here. So shaddup a minute," grumbling, he keyed the chair's controls and took the floor, hovering above the collected slightly. "How many of you read the news?"

"Only the comics," a twittering voice quipped, and a brief spattering of nervous laughter followed it. Gizmo's scowl deepened. "What?"

A key was pressed, and the room went silent. "Billy's dead."

Eyes turned, some suspicious, to the young genius. "We'd decided to not bring it up," a low, rumbling voice continued, as Mammoth stood and crossed to the smaller villain's side. "But then we'd realized there was more than Billy missing or lost and well... It's better to be prepared."

"Someone else?" A new voice, Johnny Rancid, a satellite of the main group spoke up. "How'd you know someone else was missing?"

Looking to Mammoth, Gizmo shrugged and keyed in a few short strokes on his machine. One of the displays came alive, and there, names and a map spread out, then condensed down to a small wireframe model of the room. "I bugged you all."

Cries of outrage and anger flooded the room, till Mammoth simply stomped a foot, rattling the windows in a bid for silence. "Quiet," the large man growled, as Gizmo lowered the weapon in his lap. The threatening hum died down, but only slightly.

"It's simple. I don't trust any of you," he said simply, shrugging. "Plus, it's easy to see what's up, when shit hits the fan."

"You still didn't say who was missing," a voice chimed in, recalling Rancid's earlier question.

Nodding, Gizmo keyed in another command, and a list of five names went red. "Billy, obviously. Garrote, The Angel, XT, and Paperdoll." Letting the display go black, he turned back to the crowd, "Here's the thing.

"I have a bad feeling, about what's going down. Something isn't right with how Billy was done, and the police have no idea. What's worse, they called in the Titans, and their work on the case went blackbox."

"Meaning?" See-more was staring intently at the screens, his single optic going from one to another of the recordings taken at the scene of Billy's murder.

Pulling up a file, Gizmo pointed to it's corresponding screen. "Meaning, there's an inconclusive and I can't get into the records."

Someone laughed, all be it nervously. "So you called us all here, a serious risk to everyone I might add, because you had a bad feeling?"

Another voice, "You mean they've thwarted the great Gizmo?"

"What I mean is, they've stumped the Titans, and they had to call in backup," the diminutive genius snapped. Silence reigned after, as the implications were apparent. He decided to drive the point home anyway, "And yeah, shithead, a bad feeling. The JLA. Bigtimers, are getting called in. When was the last time that happened? Anyone remember?"

A few of the veterans, and some of the Academy students seemed to look to one another, nervously. "That's right. Back on Halloween almost two years ago.

"Back when Trigon nearly destroyed the world."

"Someone stopped him though, didn't they?" One of Paper's partners asked, and Gizmo nodded to the woman, Rokkon he thought her name was.

Her large stature and heavy musculature probably meant he was right, but he figured a name wasn't needed to answer the woman. Not like this was a social event after all, "Right. But, we don't know how. Something else bothers me about this, a coincidence. I don't believe in those... but I have some information on it, conveniently enough..." keying in another feed, they were given a mangled, but intelligible recording from a security camera.

"Sir, we've got a breach!" One of the suited guards called, as another came into view. They went off as a pair, and shortly one returned, face grim. Leaning over a panel, or computer, the resolution was bad so it was impossible to tell, the man seemed displeased.  
"Control, this is Block-C. We have a situation."

"Confirmed, Block-C, status of prisoner RR203971-173?"

"Undetermined. Stasis cell intact, prisoner absent."

"Confirmed, contacting Watchtower. Control out."

The feed died here, and those who were watching turned curious glances to the young man that sat watching the blank screen still, a grim expression on his face. "Who's RR2... whatever? What does this have to do with Billy?"

"I'm not sure," Gizmo admitted, shaking his head slowly. The young genius's lack of an answer shocked more than it annoyed those present, as it was a very, very rare situation where such happened. It was less the fact that Gizmo didn't know something, as that he'd bring incomplete data, something he himself claimed to hate. "But what I do know is this. The Titans called in for help, to the JLA. That makes this big, in some way. The same day, that prisoner went missing, and we hear about Billy." Closing his monitors down, the young man lowered his chair. "I'm still working on who RR is, but when I find out, I have a feeling this will make more sense."

A snort, as someone pointed at the little man, "What makes you think we'll just go along with waiting? Why not go rough up the Titans and find out?"

"Because if you're stupid, right now, chances are you're dead," he replied, leveling the weapon at the speaker angrily, a young upstart with a stupid costume with an exclamation mark on it. "With the JLA backing them, the Titans are dangerous. Also, if my feeling pans out, whatever is out there, is hunting us. Wanna make yourself a bigger target?" Gizmo's smile was the only one in the room, behind the angrily whirring mass of metal and ominous glow in his hand. He lowered the weapon slowly. "Didn't think so. Now.

"We need to get smart, and as hard as that is to some of you fuckers, I'd rather not loose any more people."

"What, are you planning a new Hive or something?"

The question made him laugh. "No, I'm not up for this leadership thing. We've only had a few, and one... well." Shrugging, he dismissed that unpleasant memory, "My interest is simple. The more of you that are alive, the better my chances are for survival. It's in my best interest, to keep you all out of the morgue."

No one faulted his logic there. Indeed, the new angle seemed to ripple through the group, and within minutes they'd cast off a number of the personal issues, as one. It wasn't a proper team, he figured, but it was better than being picked off one by one. This way at least they had a chance. He hoped.

In the corner, Kid Wykkyd's brow furrowed, as the silent youth recalled a face. Questions of who would prey on them had caused him some disquiet, and in thinking it over, he had to also recall those who would want vengeance. He knew of one, that would fit both, but... she was all but dead, the last time he'd seen her. Filing the information away, he focused on the meeting, and the plans that were being bandied about.

OoO

"Raven?"

The darkness in the run down hovel that it seemed Raven had taken a liking to was thick, this late at night. Jinx rubbed at her eye and sat up from the couch where she'd fallen asleep, for the moment ignoring the stiffness and groaning of her body. Casting her eye about, she saw no sign of the demon. Rubbing the sleep from her eye, she yawned and squeaked when her leg started complaining, pins and needles telling her it too was asleep. Frantically massaging it, she stalled after a moment, her mind catching up with the now.

_Her leg._

Jinx bit her lip and pulled back the coverlet that was spread across her lower body with a nervous sense of expectation. Her single eye was closed, as the sensations she'd not felt in... it wasn't measurable. She had lost her sense of the past, after that day, the impact of all those things, all those atrocities done to her, had redefined her.

Even now she was starting to understand the depth it had scarred her. She watched Raven work, and knew, in some part of her, that it was wrong, fundamentally wrong.

The problem was, she didn't care.

There was coping, then there was desensitization. Jinx's mind had decided on the latter. Almost every night since that time, she'd had nightmares, memories played back in lurid focus as those she'd once called friend, once betrayed, took their satisfaction on her. It was... she had problems believing it, sometimes. How could they? How could they kill...

Shaking off the memories of a small, defenseless, soft thing that was part of her own flesh she shivered in the cold. Her clothes were missing, and it unnerved her slightly that she'd slept on the rotting, decaying couch so well. A derisive laugh crawled up and between her lips at that. "Here, I've been living like a bum, and now I'm getting worked up about my sleeping arrangements." But it was true. Jinx looked to her hand, the new one that now matched it's other. Her legs, slender and graceful, not the mismatched pair that she'd awoken to the day before. Each piece of herself that Raven returned – and she still had no idea how that was happening – seemed to restore some bit of her deeper self. For all that the potential of their bargain should mean her death, she still desired those creature comforts.

At least to her initial thinking. Something else was being lost as she was restored, the thought curled about quietly, settling in a corner of her mind like discarded ribbon. "Loosing my pain, my... loss." Giggling at her internal conversation, she considered.

"Losing my loss? Silly... but it works. Each time... it feels like those memories dull. I can remember it clearer, without wanting to drown it out, bash my head till they're gone," her thoughts trailing off, she noticed her hands, and their lazy attentions to her new flesh. With the coverlet draped as it was... she could almost imagine herself whole. Leaning back against the arm of the couch, she ran her palms along that stretch of skin, shivering at those long missed sensations. _Real_. It took a long time, and she admitted it was still sinking in, that her hand was hers again. Her thighs impulsively tensed and her breath hitched slightly, her lip captive between her teeth. Guiltily she realized there was a warmth and dampness there, that she'd not realized. A tightening of her stomach told her she'd get no peace unless... Shivering again she slipped her fingertips along those matching expanses of skin, drawing them up along her thighs lightly. Mine, she thought idly.

Curled up deeply into a corner, Raven's head tilted slightly, as she watched the young woman on the squalid couch pleasuring herself. A small part of her envied that abandon, the sensations that had built up in the young woman over time. Since her ruining, she had been unable to think of such things. Her body was a testament to the abuse plied against her, and the sight of it undid any sexual tension that she had felt. Now, though, with much of her self remade, those needs resurfaced, and called for satiation.

Her envy wasn't malicious though, simply... curious, if such could be colored by intent. Raven had often, before her father's advent, used those same methods that Jinx did, the noise of it quiet, wet and languid where she lay. Since though... Raven's focus turned inward. "Where is... me," she asked the darkness of her self. The unmaking of her had left her more and less than herself in many ways. Her understanding of her powers was greater than any fool the JLA could have sent to analyze her, and their results were laughable.

_"She's discorporated, on a physical level. What's left, that we can see, is just a... focused distortion. Her soul, containing the power that she channels. It holds a form from habit, but because there's no... body there, anymore, it's not static." The technician, some nameless, faceless no one that had come to inform, console or report, had continued as her 'friends' listened with grim attention. "In time we think the boundaries of her sense of self will be contaminated by the power she's channeling, the... influence of it."_

_Robin had asked, then, in his stoic manner, "What does that mean?"_

_"She's just a demon now. Your Raven is gone."_

Memory would have set her to laughing, were she not so focused on the young woman, her legs now splayed widely, breathing labored and rasping through parts of herself still artificial. Her gaze lingered there, as the curves of the woman's legs drew the eye naturally to their origin, where Jinx's hands worked frenetically, seeking with abandon some release for the tension that wracked her. It surprised Raven that a surge of lust curled through her, almost painfully.

It had been a long, long while since such had affected her. The technician had been correct, to a point. Were her friends really as close to her as they claimed, they would have realized the error. Her body had become part and parcel to the spell to summon Trigon, this was true. Like all... births, he needed a woman, that natural portal of flesh, a symbol of the process he intended, more than a literal one. Still, it had destroyed that which she was.

Her flesh and blood form had been lost, but her soul-self, that often seen black form that so often took the form of her namesake, remained. It was this that her mind, locked away in truth far from her body in Nevermore, had formed a body from. During the Cataclysm, she had used that long-ago forged gateway within her, the bridge of Rage, to ply a dangerous treachery against her father.

He'd been sloppy. The bridge could work both ways. He'd assumed, correctly, that the young woman Rachel Roth would want nothing to do with breaking that floodgate and drawing all that power to herself. He was wrong in thinking the destroyed, vengeful spirit of Raven wouldn't do so.

Rage had been more than happy to oblige her. Held so long a prisoner to that cruel master, she welcomed the chance. And so, Raven had turned the tide on the demon, reducing him to an aged, withered parody of his former self.

She'd laughed when, unbelieving such had happened, he'd begged for mercy. Then she had reduced him to smoking bone and ash, obliterating that soul inside utterly, turning it's own hate against it over, and over. Draining him even as he summoned more hellspawned power, her nature, the thing he'd made her betraying him.

Raven had always been intended to be a portal, a gateway. He, conversely, was merely a demon. She could barely contain her glee at how simple the solution had become. Triumphant, she'd banished the hellish mockery that he'd encrusted the world in, a child's effort at gratification she'd observed. How much simpler, she'd pondered, to just pull a little corner of hell itself over the world, and let nature do the rest. Tuck it warm and comfortably under that blanket of sin. Her father's mistake, she'd dismissed such criticisms.

Her mind had caught up with itself then. Where had such thoughts come from? Why would she... and then the gravity of it all hit her.

All his power, his nearly omnipotent potential was hers. Every hellspawned fraction, and that was the catch – her soul was now firmly connected to that infernal realm, where before she was simply a gateway to nowhere, placing those concepts where she willed. Now, she could sense it, creeping up inside her. Awareness, power, impulse.

Raven's nature had made her something... unique. She wasn't a demon, not in the true sense. Her soul self wasn't capable of that simplistic an idea. No, she was the gateway to hell, itself. Colored, built and eternally connected to that infernal idea. That was their mistake, and also her doom.

Thoughts of her nature stilled as a sharp cry ripped out of the woman on the couch, her body sweat-sheened and shaking, arched from shoulder to foot as she strained against her hands. As quickly as the image seized her, it faded as Jinx fell back to the couch, panting, her head rolled to the side of the room facing Raven. The demon knew that the girl couldn't see her, but the turn of her head, the exposed skin and metal and the quiet, warm sense of satisfaction and contentment that rolled off the girl was a heady combination. Raven considered those things, the spike of lust inside her earlier, and smirked slightly to herself.

"In becoming atrocity, one finds comfort in the atrocious," she thought as the woman finally crested off her activities and pulled the coverlet Raven had draped over her back up, shivering slightly. She counted to three hundred while contemplating the day's work, those things she had planned before the blood had stopped flowing through Eddie's veins. "Good morning, Jinx," Raven said distantly, as she pulled herself out of shadow from a corner of the room that Jinx was not facing. Curiously, a small part of her didn't want to let the thief know of her voyeurism.

Smiling, Jinx stretched languidly and looked to her strange roommate, her mind still happily hazed with her orgasm, "Morning, been up long?"

"I don't sleep."

Shrugging off the comment, Jinx sat up, holding the coverlet to her chest. "Do you eat? I'm feeling a bit hungry. If you could make yourself a bit more presentable – not that I mind the whole shadow thing, just saying, we could go get some breakfast."

Raven let herself smile, at the woman's offer. Was it gratitude, for her new flesh? A forced sense of consideration, for a companion? Discarding her curiosity, she simply slipped a thread of thought into the thief's mind.

_She seems so... distant. I don't know why she's helping me, this much. It wasn't part of the deal, but... she's helping me. Despite the things she does, which I asked her to do, I... what do I want? I can't hold it against her, what she does, how she kills them, can I? It would be like cursing the gun for the wound being too messy. So, we are in this, together. Do I try to help her, too? Be her friend? _

This almost sent her stumbling, her form wavering uncertainly. The flavor of those thoughts stabbed at her on a fundamental level, and something inside her wanted nothing more than to flare into smoke and be gone from it. Despite this Raven didn't let it affect her outwardly, giving no sign of the chaos within her. "Yes, I feed," she replied with a moment's pause. The irony of that comment, set her features into a smile. "I'll... put on something nice."

Jinx stumbled to her feet and wrinkled her nose slightly. "One thing Raven, I was wondering."

"Yes?"

"Can we, I don't know, clean this place a little?" Dusting at her backside, Jinx blushed at the small patch of wetness that had been left on the couch as she stood. Hoping her company would only see it as another stain on the couch, she shifted slightly, the chill air biting at her exposed skin. "It's a bit... dirty."

Shrugging, the demon noted that the state of things, in a mundane sense, was as the woman stated. It had passed her notice, her initial reactions to this place being built of a different spectrum. It had been chose by other criteria. "I'll see what can be done," she murmured, watching Jinx grin slightly at her reply, excusing herself to the restroom.

She waited for another count of one hundred, before moving hesitantly to the couch. Raven reached out a hand, a lance of shadow and from it, she unfurled a semblance of her old flesh. A finger, hesitantly, traced the diameter of that slip of damp. "Warm," her voice faint and uncertain, sounded before she fell back into herself, hurtling away from that moment.

Time, was needed. And distance.

OoO

"Could I ask you a question?" Raven looked up from the plate before her, the rather homely mix of browned potatoes and sausage bleeding grease down onto the ceramic. She nodded at the woman, who was busily chewing her eggs, the latest mouthful only barely contained between her lips. "I understand why you picked Angel, she was on the... list, after all. But who was that other, um." Swallowing hard, she gestured vaguely and went still.

They'd come to a nearby twenty-four hour diner, a greasy spoon kind of place, that wouldn't be bothered by their appearance, as long as they paid in cash and left without problem. Jinx had long given up on trying to mask her deformities, but today she tried, seeing as the ones she could hide were easily done. The artificial ribs and organs still demanded an external access, and so scarred lines matted her chest and stomach, marring her figure to the hip. A shirt, loose and untucked did a satisfactory job of masking this. A large coat over that hid the asymmetry of her missing breast and the line of her waist, so broad compared to her other side.

That she didn't need to hide her hand and leg, made her smile. She had spun briefly in a mirror, almost forgetting that she was still, underneath those clothes, a ruin.

Coming out of the room, she had seen Raven sitting at their table, her face a slightly thinner, more matured version of the girlish visage she'd remembered. Indoor light was more defining, and since her summoning, Jinx had little opportunity to really look at the woman. Demon, she reminded herself, but the word held no rancor. As if thinking of her had caught Raven's attention, she looked up and nodded once to the thief, "Are you prepared?" Jinx had nodded her approval of the demon's human guise and the simple clothes, familiar and yet changed subtly from what she'd known, and the two had departed.

Raven blinked, her eyes hooded and mimicking a semblance of normality, and considered the question a moment, around a practically ignored mouthfull of of toast. "Eddie Bloomburg." The name seemed to mean nothing to the young woman, and Raven shrugged, taking another bite of the crisped bread. "He's one of Titans East's members. A... demon, I suppose.

"Eddie made a deal with a greater demon, for power. He's been playing at being a hero for a while," she took a sip of juice, the sharp tang of it washing over her tongue. "I wanted... to know something, that he knew. Needed to be sure, before I took the next step."

Jinx listened, her food forgotten for a moment as she recalled her companion's own vendetta. "What did you learn?"

Smirking a bit, Raven took another drink of her juice, finding herself fond of the sensation. "I found out that I was wrong." A brief fit of low laughter caused Jinx's brow to rise, and Raven swept her gaze, eyes winking gray and blank a moment before her attention pulled them back into a human semblance, around the diner. "Look around. Remember the other night, when I asked you to listen."

"I remember," she paused, closing her eyes a moment. Jinx slowly lifted the bite of greasy meat to her lips. "I... think I know what you mean." She chewed the bite slowly, letting those ideals come back to the fore. The sounds, the feelings she'd felt after having let those things dig into her mind, settle there. "The... filth. Desperation."

Nodding, Raven took a delicate bite of her food, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly. "Exactly. I thought, for the longest time we worked to bring people up. To uplift them from the predators, like you once were," Jinx merely acknowledged this with a nod. "But I was wrong.

"Humanity doesn't need that. It's past time where heroes can save it." Settling back into the hard, threadbare seat Raven looked at her plate, then up at the woman across from her. Reaching forward, she kept eye contact, as she let her form shiver and break, from the arm down to fingertip. Wisps of smoke and dark lashed out, small mouths full of jagged, deeper shards of darkness greedily ate and grasped. In a moment the porcelain shone clean and white. Jinx merely blinked, nodding slowly.

"I... yes." A small laugh of her own, a ghost of that gleeful noise Raven recalled, slipped from Jinx's lips. "You still have that in you then."

"The hero?" Nodding, Raven licked her fork clean. "My friends were great teachers, in that way," Raven commented slowly, letting her arm form back from that shadowy undoing. "Showing me what a hero is, Eddie was just a reminder. They strive for their own sake, just like those they save. There is no enlightened drive, no greater good, Jinx. There is only the one; the individual, striving either for or against that which is inside them."

"Justifications and illusion?"

"Yes." Raven's eyes, still the violet that Jinx remembered from the past, gazed back at her. "What do you think would save the world, as it is?"

Shrugging, Jinx looked to her plate and considered it a moment. She'd had her fill, but it wasn't often that she could afford such a meal. Grudgingly she shifted the plate to the side, "I've never considered it. Wasn't part of my job."

"Hm, suppose not," was the response Raven voiced, before a long pause. "A hero, any number of them won't help it now. They just clean out the cancer, but don't treat it. It grows back, worse than before.

"What it needs, is villains." This caused her companion to blink, and Raven grinned. "You see it? How people, given only an enemy and no saviors, set aside their differences. War does it. Strife. It unifies, gives them something to work against as one. Give them a strong enough enemy, and perhaps the world would save itself."

Her coral eye blinked, brow furrowing. "Will that be you, then? That great darkness?"

Laughing outright, Raven shook her head slowly. "I can see it, but no. I have no aims to save the world, despite my long-dead teachers, and my treacherous friends. I mention it, because I want you to understand."

Deciding to humor the demon, rather than voice her aggravation at her windy ways, Jinx simply tilted her head in curiosity, "Understand what? And why?"

"That what you are, is what they made, Jinx," her voice gone deathly cold, the former Titan seemed to pulse in her vision a moment, a feeling of pressure on her ears making Jinx wince. "That poison that they are, a broken immune system. It should destroy those things that humans let prey on itself, but the weakness in them won't let it happen." Rising, she gestured to the door and Jinx fell into step, only vaguely aware of the proprietor eyeing them suspiciously. A few steps from the door, the man called out angrily, but Jinx didn't hesitate, and Raven didn't seem to notice him at all.

Outside, the demon turned to regard the small diner, as it seemed the windows were hazed and tinted, people angry and frightened, pulling at the door and slamming hands and chairs into windows, neither of which obeyed their wishes. "They made people weak. Made them complacent and unwilling, unable to stand for themselves. And so they have become prey."

Jinx looked on dispassionately, nodding as she admitted the truth in Raven's words. It was a bleak, ugly view, but one that rang true in her mind. "In the end, they're dooming the world with every person they save, aren't they? Weakening humanity, by treating it as if it needed something like them, and then making sure it does by letting those same things continue to prey on them."

"You finally see." Raven nodded approvingly, as she gestured back to the diner, those inside watching the two with faces ranging from open terror to angry promise. "Do you think they try to survive? They only rail at this small thing I've done, a weak cage. Yet, those inside are calling, praying for the Titans. No thoughts of 'what can I do?' only 'when will they save me'." Sneering, she shook her head.

Turning away for a moment, Jinx scanned the skyline, more out of habit than worry. "Why do you tell me these things? I... I'm not complaining, mind," looking back to the demon, she noticed the slight smile on her lips and considered it, curiously. "I remember. I can't go through this untouched, and I don't plan to. I'm an equal part of this, I've realized."

Pausing, Raven had to admit that she didn't need to make such things, these insights into her own view and mind, known to the young woman. It wasn't a need to explain, or justify that drove her to do so – no, it was simpler.

In the beginning, she'd felt the compulsion to undo the woman's mind. A lingering anger at binding her, even willingly, to their agreement. It was a fundamental thing, to lash out at that which took away one's freedoms. Then, almost as soon as Raven had gotten the measure of the woman, understood which places to press, which to strike to break her, it had changed.

Raven, for all her almost two years alone in that cell, found herself liking the woman's company. It was the simple acceptance of her, her nature, her atrocity that stopped her, but at the same time spurred her on.

Raven wanted a peer. Someone at once like, and unlike herself. The realization had given her pause, but only for a moment. Could any other, be so accepting? So similar of aim? Understand her need for vengeance in one moment and her desire to understand why it made her hesitate the next? No, none could. Not now, at least, and not in any foreseeable future.

"When atrocity has become your nature, only in nightmare can you find solace," Raven said quietly, and the... depth of feeling in those words made Jinx repeat them a few times quietly to herself.

She nodded, once, her brows knit as her mind ground over their conversations. Recalled her own screaming cry for blood and vengeance, still keening in her mind. For all the revulsion a part of her held for those scenes Raven painted, a part of her wanted more. More and _worse_. "I.. think I understand," taking a deep breath, she looked back at the diner, a sickly smile curving her lips. "Still hungry, then?"

Turning her gaze to the woman, Raven raised a brow. "You don't mind?"

Gesturing, she dismissed the sight before her, "Go ahead," the thief bade, and the demon smiled back, her eyes fading to their familiar, blank white.

The hazing inside the diner slowly solidified, and it seemed as if in this mid-morning hour, the place were viewed during deep night. Inside, nothing could be seen, but beside her, Jinx felt an electric spike of power wash through Raven. She also felt the impulse, the animal fear sweep through her, as something fundamentally _wrong_ permeated the air around her. That part of the brain that screams at one to seek cover, run, flee, was railing. Ignoring it, she watched, refusing to let her gaze wander, as Raven's color seemed to deepen, a light blush actually playing over the skin of her face and collar.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over and she looked back at the panels of glass, now clear of the midnight that had obscured them. Nowhere to be seen through those windows, were the teeming mob that had been the object of their conversation for so many minutes. Almost as if an after thought, she could see a fire rising up, licking at the back of the kitchen's grill. Turning, she saw Raven regarding her levelly, waiting. "Full now?" she asked simply, nodding to the street that lead back to the dilapidated apartment.

"Yes, thank you."

They'd walked some distance, Jinx's step light and somewhat energetic ahead of the pair. As they crossed to the street near their destination, Jinx's voice sounded, over the cacophony of traffic and people. "Shall we have chinese tonight?" Jinx asked, turning to skip slightly backwards, along the street ahead of the demon.

Chuckling, Raven nodded. "That sounds... agreeable."

OoO

Location and times, dates and events, swept over the monitor that Robin was looking at, as his team assembled in the conference room behind him, along with their JLA assistants, in truth transfers from Titans East.

That simple fact had made the gruesome discovery at the church so much harder to deal with. Faith, already somewhat weakened from the psychic backlash of something that she had no idea how to explain, had nearly gone catatonic when she saw the state Eddie had been left in. It had been a rough night, and none of them had slept well, and it showed.

"Any news," Impulse asked, practically falling into a chair. The speedster had a usually jovial, flippant personality, but it seemed even this was dragging at him, weighing him down.

Shaking his head, Robin scrubbed a hand through his black hair, trying to make sense of the spiderwebs that refused to make a shape before him. "Nothing. I've been scanning the networks, looking for correlations. I have some odd police patrol transmissions, but haven't listened to them yet."

Cassie sat down as well, her civilian clothes wrinkled and unkempt. "Lab is telling us all the same things," she stated flatly, having spent her night half in the city morgue taking notes, and half in the tower with Cyborg, doing their own investigation. "Still no traces. Cuts left no molecular signatures, and the forces that made those..." taking a breath, she leaned forward, resting her forehead on her hands, "things, those racks, left us nothing. No grip marks, no prints – nothing."

"It just doesn't seem possible," Beast Boy murmured, rubbing at his eyes slowly.

The rest of the team just nodded, not knowing what else to add. Robin slowly looked up and put away his computer, resting his chin on interlaced fingers. "Lets think a bit, see what we have."

"Three murders, so far," Cyborg stated, still going over results on a small terminal he'd wired to his network system.

Starfire's brow knit, she spoke next, "They occurred at random times, roughly a day apart."

"Different locations," Impulse added.

"No tools. No pattern," Batgirl added quietly, from the far side of the table.

Robin took a breath, and sighed, "all victims were either meta or empowered."

A silence drifted among them, and more than one shifted uncomfortably. "That ties it together, but doesn't give us motive," Robin noted, shaking his head. "If it had been just Angel this time, then we could pin it on a vengeance killing. Someone the Hive had wronged, but they also targeted Eddie. It's almost random."

"I can't see any connection," Superboy replied, shoving his computer away in frustration. "They didn't have any similarity, other than whatever they used as tools. That's our only connection that these are even related, as the Billy's killer and the Church's just have totally different methods."

Nodding, Robin looked over his screen once more. "Which means either they're learning, by killing more, or just... playing around. Or that we have two, identical killers."

"Possible copycat?"

The young detective shook his head at Beast Boy's suggestion, "Only if it's inside the PD, or one of us. No one else has the exposure."

"Frustrating," the green hero added, leaning back and closing his eyes. He was hesitant to bring up the point he wanted to, but something about this, the brutality and method, reminded him of something. "What about the Arkham escapee, Batgirl? Did your team get any more data on that?"

Shaking her head silently, the quiet woman keyed up the main monitor from her portable drive. "The cell was intact. No sign of force. No internal sign. No external sign," Clicking briefly through the various views, she finally keyed in one last, old recording. It showed the containment fields, runes and arcs of energy laced in a vortex of power, as great blocks of mage-dead stone were held up beyond.

In the middle of it, writhed a shadow that occasionally took the form of a young woman, eyes blazing at her captors. Some looked away as they recognized the form there, some looked closer. Almost anticlimactically, the walls closed and shut, the vast fields winking out as the stone made a barrier between their ensorceled target and themselves. "This was recorded two years ago. Nothing has changed since then."

A chair clattered as it fell back, and more sounded as a few people stood along the table, slower. "You mean there aren't doors? _Nothing_?"

Beast Boy's words didn't seem to phase the woman, as she turned curious eyes across those gathered, one by one. "No. Did none of you try to visit?" A silence deadened the air of the room, as Batgirl heaved as sigh, retrieving her portable drive. "Concern now, is misplaced."

As the caped woman left the room, those veterans, all standing turned to look at one another, their eyes in various shades of emotion.

"They told us not to," Starfire said weakly, as she looked to be holding back tears.

Beast Boy was openly, quietly weeping, young man's eyes till riveted to that traitorous screen – reflecting the traitors now that it had gone silent. "I... didn't think she'd want to see me."

"I just had no idea." Cyborg muttered, slumping down heavily, his face in his hands.

They turned, as the last of their number just stood, back to the table. Finally, he murmured, almost too quietly to be heard, "What could I have done? It was out of my hands." Those same hands, clenched and relaxed angrily at his sides. "The JLA decided to do it – they didn't ask, didn't suggest. Just... did it."

He looked back and forth from the quietly incriminating gazes, and narrowed his eyes. "Don't forget what she'd become," were his last words, as he stalked from the room.

The words that hung, unsaid between them didn't need voice. "But what about who she had been?"

OoO

Faith rocked back and forth on her bed, eyes glued to the large window that overlooked the city. "It's wrong," she said again, her head shaking slowly. To her sight, the city itself was diseased. Distantly, she could see it, pulsing like some great putrescent tumor, a distortion she'd felt as they drove the other day. It had taken root then.

It felt like the entire throng of hell had lifted it's voice in a great, dissonant chorus.

She could feel it, reverberating still. The stone was thrown; the pond had no choice but to ripple. And she has stupidly placed herself in that water. "Wrong," she hissed again, as an arm lay across her shoulder.

Batgirl looked down to the older woman, as she spoke to the things she saw. It was intensely troubling, to someone trained as she was to read people, read their intent and body language so acutely that in combat she was nearly undefeated. She could count those victors on one hand. Half now, were dead. So in looking to someone so wracked with terror and anxiety, Batgirl had no choice but to empathize.

Looking out at the city her partner in this venture was glaring at, Cassandra's eyes narrowed. Faith had seen, felt something. But since seeing her friend Eddie, the woman had been unreachable.

OoO

Distantly, Raven felt the urge to hum, as she bent the fabric of hell a bit more. The apartment building she'd chosen, so soaked and riddled with sin, sank a bit deeper into that hazy middle-place, the boundaries between the here, now and hell growing thinner.

Looking about the place from which she worked and that Jinx rested, she nodded once, satisfied with it. Jinx was out, taking some of the meager money that she'd stolen through the day to get something to eat, it being late. Raven, having had her fill and then some of her exotic breakfast had opted to stay, and try her hand at... decorating. It amused her that the young woman hadn't just asked her to help with the money issue. She felt a certain respect in that.

A small corner of her mind hoped Jinx liked what she'd done with the place.

--

A/N: Acceleration.


	5. Chapter 4

_**Vermilion Ascendant**_

_Chapter Four_

_Dawning of Her Delirium_

"How is she?"

Batgirl looked behind her, as Robin turned the corner of the hall. She'd heard the call come in earlier, and the young man lock himself in the claustrophobic warren he called a room. Heard him stomp out, walking around the Tower as if something was pressing down on him, glowering at him as he did everything around him. In short, she'd expected him, no less than two hours ago.

Luckily her mentors had taught her patience. "Resting," she replied simply, purposefully standing between him and Faith's door. She had little personal connection to the woman, but for this job, this assignment, she was the brawn, to the other woman's brain. In this way, she understood her role well. Protect, ward and guard. Right now, the woman needed to recuperate and recenter from whatever had taxed her so heavily the day before. Robin, in his mood, would do nothing to help the woman's current state.

Pointedly, the detective looked between his female counterpart and the door. "There was a message from the Watchtower. They had some information specifically for Faith, important to the case."

Cassandra stared levelly at the man, her features sharp in the darkened corridor. "It would be wasted, then, to tell her in her sleep."

Robin held her gaze a moment, then turned, walking down the hallway again without a word. She didn't wait to see him all the way, didn't need to. He would go, find receptive ears and faces with his team. Slipping back inside Faith's room, the young woman settled into a chair, watching and waiting. Occasionally she would look out those same windows, that her partner had pointed at, and tried to see that which she did. In time, Faith would tell her where this wrongness was.

And then, it would be her turn.

– _Apples and honey. The jam in the tea is apricot. I threw the silver teaspoon against the wall –_

Jinx stood, leaning on the balcony railing as the wind from the early morning whipped her shirt away, the sun glinting off a stretch of metal and angry skin where the two joined. Her arms outstretched, the young woman spun about, a leg curved up and around as the momentum sent her crashing against the railing. The sound of metal grating against metal startled a laugh from her, and she fell to the ground, a hand resting along the rigid cage of her chest. Laughing quietly, she blinked up at the sun, as the smile on her face fell slowly. Reaching up, Jinx ran a finger along the bandage over the side of her face, trailing it along the deep inset under it. "Why doesn't it feel as bright, this morning?"

"Maybe it's just the haze," Raven's voice murmured quietly, from the shelter of the balcony's shuttered door. A week ago that voice would have set her skin crawling and herself jumping in fright, but today... Jinx just turned with a shrug and a small, brief smile.

"Perhaps. The smog is bad this time of year." Looking out, she knew that wasn't it. Jinx wasn't a fool, but at the same time... she valued her illusions. Some of those kept her sane, after all. Leaning forward she bounced to her feet, teetering unsteadily for a moment. "I like what you did with the apartment," she added, turning and leaning back against the banister again.

Last night, after she'd returned home from going off to scavenge food, she'd nearly missed the building in truth. It wasn't that something huge had changed about it, but there was something vaguely different about it. Jinx had a good sense of direction, one that she relied on heavily in her former time as a thief, and to her embarrassment, she'd passed the building twice before it settled on her that it was the right one. "How... hm. Bad question eh?" Shaking her head at the faint grin she saw on Raven's face, Jinx just turned her back to the yellowed sunrise and faced the building.

It did seem... different. A part of her mind told her that the wrongness had only grown sharper, more dangerous, but at the same time she knew it wasn't aimed at her, so much as a natural thing, to this place now. The sounds and noises had all but disappeared, the ones that Raven had made her listen for two nights ago. Now, when she listened, there was only the silence, and the sounds of the building itself.

"Where are all the people, Raven?" Her question seemed to catch the demon off guard, and Jinx regarded her quietly a moment. "If you don't want to say, you don't have to. I'm just curious. I haven't heard the sound of another person here for a day." Nor had she seen them. After the trip up the rickety elevator to the room, it had only occurred to her after entering the room itself. There wasn't the usual bums and slummers that always populated the lobby, and when she'd listened, no sounds of televisions or people arguing. It was like they were alone in the building now. Considering her companion, perhaps they were.

Within the darker corner of the now-spacious balcony, Raven looked out as the light painted an oddly ephemeral halo about Jinx's head. "That would be hard to explain."

Jinx chuckled quietly, her lip quirking, "Hmm. Try me."

Gesturing inside, Raven moved out of the doorway and back into the main room. It wasn't that she disliked the sun, but the idea of standing in a doorway for some time explaining this didn't appeal to her.

Stifling a yawn, Jinx followed, again looking over the changed room with a sense of wonder. Gone, seemingly, was the grime and rot. Despite the cleanness of the room, it was disconcerting. It felt like, as she swept her good eye about the walls, that just beyond the range of her vision, everything was different. Despite it, she wasn't going to complain. Everything was different, where she'd thought that maybe she and Raven would spend a day cleaning up, the changes had happened while she was out.

It wasn't just the dirt and filth, but the entire place looked different, altered. She dismissed the odd vertigo that seemed to swarm at the edge of her vision, and laid a hand on the wall as she passed. Real, her hand told her brain. Despite it, there was a distortion in her awareness, almost as if there were two things being said at once, one just louder, more insistent. Red and gold patterns, delicate and winding sprang up from the baseboards, all themselves a red-etched ivory that ran from wall to wall. Clean and pretty. Humming Jinx rose up on the ball of a foot, and leaned forward into a lunge, giggling.

Raven watched with a slight smile. "Like it then?"

"It's so pretty now," her companion replied, looking up at the ceiling. Stalling she fell and laid back, blinking. The pattern there was as it was last night, when she came home. A scene of a skyline, buildings rising up at each wall, painting an illusion that there was no roof. For a moment Jinx had thought she saw... something else. "I just wonder how, now and then. Plus, well, the lack of people."

"They're still here," Raven assured, kneeling by the young woman and helping her back up, standing back as she dusted herself off.

Jinx tilted her head, considering the demon and her words. "I don't understand. I haven't seen anyone, heard anyone." Walking about, she took in the stocked kitchen, and grinned. "Do you want anything to eat? I'll cook," so saying, she busied herself with cutting up fruit and rifling around in the pantry, exclaiming at her occasional find.

Leaning against the doorway, her eyes lidded, Raven considered the woman's jubilant mood. It tasted... sweet as her shadows tugged at it here and there. "I'll have some juice," she told her finally, earning a smile. She felt... something, unsure what, at her lie. Motion at the corner of her eye caused Raven to turn, as the shadow she cast from the room's light distorted the image it fell on.

There, the wall crawled, the scarlet dripping and trailing off the yellow of fresh bone, shapeless things writhing behind the matte, causing it to bulge and shift in it's passing. Narrowing her eyes, the scene calcified, with a faint screaming that seemed to echo behind the light.

"Hrm? Did you hear... sounded like that woman down the hall." Jinx's hand cupped an orange, from the bowl on the table, halved and dripping profusely into a bowl she held it over.

Shaking her head, Raven slid into the room and seated herself at the table. "I think it was just the walls settling. Funny old place."

"Yeah," shrugging, Jinx went back to wrenching the juice from the orange, while Raven looked on, smiling quietly.

– _Hurry up, let's play! Dolls never say anything. they just try to sing the one song they know_ _–_

Robin leaned back, sighing as he ran a hand along his face, trying futilely to banish the weariness that was settling over him. The networks that he monitored had absolutely lit up this morning, and not in a good way.

Strange paranormal phenomenon had been reported all night, and there were over twenty pending missing person's reports already, since midnight. Even on a bad day, the city rarely topped five in a day. Add to that the fire downtown, and the strange report that it had cause.

Insurance companies were claiming fraud, as the building was empty when it burned down, yet there had been no luck contacting the proprietor. More problematic, witness reports had said the diner was open when it apparently was razed, but there were no bodies, no sign of arson. It didn't make sense.

He hated it when things didn't make sense. "Coffee?" Starting, he looked over his shoulder, where Starfire stood, offering the cup. "Figured you had been up all night, and that this would help you focus."

"Thanks, Star," he murmured, taking the cup. The last few days had been draining on them all, with the number of unanswered issues and the threat of something preying on metas and powered individuals a very real thing just outside. Even more worrying, was the issue with Eddie, that he'd uncovered. Apparently the young man had been in the East team's tower not two hours before he'd been found. The implications didn't reassure him. "Long night, I guess."

Nodding, the Tamaranian regarded the seemingly endless windows on the young man's computer and frowned. "Has so much happened?"

Seeing the focus of her glance, Robin shook his head. "No, I'm just trying to find a pattern. A basis for prediction, I suppose." Keying in the criteria he'd programmed over the course of last night, he waited as a busy notice counted down on the screen. "This analyzes the data from the local network, and if there's a pattern, will tell me what it is. From there, it's easier to predict, or at least expect what would happen next."

"So this will let us know who the killer is after?"

Shrugging, he leaned back as the results lit up the screen. "Yes and no. Possible victims will be listed as it is now. But with only three deaths, the possibilities are too high. I need more data."

Robin let his list compile, while he and the alien princess left to have breakfast. Sounds of the others doing the same made it hard to resist.

Noon finally arrived, and Robin glared at the wall clock, his lips thinning to a line. "I really want to get this information to Faith," he muttered, again cursing Batgirl's ironclad will, when she set herself into something. He understood her concern, but with so many unknowns, the data from the JLA could be a keystone to figuring out what was happening. Almost as if summoned, the woman stumbled into the room, Cassandra supporting her by an arm.

"I came as soon as I could... you can stop grumbling," shaking her head, the woman took a steadying breath and looked out the main windows, wincing at the harsh sun. "Something is happening."

"Now?" The woman seemed to consider the question, then shook her head. "What do you mean then?" Robin looked out the windows as well, and frowned as clouds seemed to be creeping around the edges of the skyline. When she offered no answer he shrugged, figuring Faith would tell him when she was ready.

Keying his communicator, Robin summoned the team and pulled up the main console's computer terminal. "Here's that data. What do you make of it?"

Faith paled and moved to the couch suddenly, stumbling. "This can't be right." Her hands sped across the keys, and the data rotated, cycling. As the group filtered in, Faith manipulated it to represent the city itself, with a spectrum of colors winking and pulsing inside the wire frame model. "Alright... lets try this again."

On the main screen, the image turned slowly, as the lights about it flickered. Over the field, the entire city taken in at a glance, it looked like a pale white glow. Some places were more red, some more blue, but overall it had a pleasantly steady glow. A key at the bottom, like a spectrograph, showed a measure of degrees that the colors meant, the description making Robin's brows rise. "Soul weight? What does this chart measure?"

"Virtue and sin," Faith answered briefly, pointing to the graph. "Blue is aligned with the celestial, good and such. Down the spectrum is red, which represents evil and sin. The balance is white, since lights of various colors combine to white. Think of it like the dots on a TV. It's just a guide, for visual analysis."

"How... how does the JLA get information like this?" Cyborg was looking over the calculations running in the background of the display, and whistled. "That's some heavy stuff."

Shrugging, Faith looked over to him and stifled a cough, "Eh, with all the races that contribute to the League, pooling resources this isn't too hard to imagine. That said, they don't actively monitor the world. Usually just a sweep once a day to get an idea if something seriously wrong is up."

Faith's wording wasn't lost on the Titans. "Something serious?"

"Yeah." Scooting back in her seat, Faith let the display begin it's rendering. "Alright, lets see if this makes sense."

As the image of the city lazily spun, the first thing those assembled noticed was a sudden drop in luminescence in one area. "Hold on, magnifying." The view changed, and they looked over the scene again, this time much closer. As time played out, the source of that dimming was apparent. "That's... horrible."

Garfield leaned forward, looking closely as the frames repeated. "Did that entire building just... disappear?"

"What is the address?" A line of longitude and latitude appeared, and he used the T-Comm to pinpoint it, via the Tower's maps. "The Diner. That's why there were no bodies, the people just disappeared."

"Hold the program," Cyborg mumbled quietly, and rewound the recording to the frame just after the block on the screen went black. "Here. See these?" Faith magnified the screen to it's maximum, and the focus of his attention became clear. "Those two."

Robin stared, as the faint pinpoints of deep scarlet near the Diner flared briefly as it went black. "Looks like we have a pair of suspects on this one. Any chance those two could be there as a coincidence?"

"Unlikely," her voice faint, Faith, heaved a sigh and reset the display. "Not that it does us much good. This isn't the kind of data you can use to identify someone." Tapping her finger on the desk, Faith worked at the keyboard again. "This wasn't the frame that I was looking for. When the data was rendering, what I saw was much different." As the display played, the city seemed to go back to normal, faintly twinkling a pale white as they watched. The accelerated time seemed to make it shimmer more intently, and the time scale at the side was nearing the end when a sudden change caught Faith's eye. "What?"

Rewinding, she played the recording back in real time. "Faith, is that... possible?"

There, slightly west of the city's center, an entire block seemed to shift, over the course of an hour going a harsh, bloody red. "Apparently it is." As they watched, the color shift seemed to ripple, spreading in an odd shock wave through the city. As it passed, the balance of the lights seemed to flicker and dim, bending toward scarlet till they resumed whichever aspect of the spectrum they'd held before.

"Kind of like something falling into a pond," Starfire observed, unsure what she was seeing.

Faith took a shaky breath and ran a hand over her eyes. "It's spreading. Look." Magnifying the display, her statement was proven, as the near the edges of that bloody spire more lights winked red. Disturbingly, as they did so, they gravitated to that single building. "Slowly though. Maybe... once an hour."

Robin glared at the screen and crossed his arms, pacing about the room. If what he was seeing was correct, whatever had happened to that one building was growing, all be is slowly. The most disturbing thing, though, was that behind the data, what those pinpoints of light represented were the souls of people in the city. "I don't understand, what does this mean though?"

Faith turned and looked back over the couch at the team, fear plain on her face. "I... I'm not sure. We should go there, and see for ourselves."

– _The pretty little bluebird escapes from its basket, gets beaten in the rain and has its wings torn neatly off – _

"We should go for a walk, this afternoon."

Raven's words startled Jinx from her reverie, as she had nearly dozed off while watching the clouds creep slowly over the city. Turning so she could see the outline of the demon's profile against the deeper darkness of the room, Jinx sat up and rubbed at her eye. "Yeah, that would be nice actually. I've been lazing about all day." Scrambling to her feet she, the young woman leaned over the banister and looked over the city, the clouds adding to the odd haze that seemed to hang about it.

Grabbing her jacket, a great shapeless thing that looked like it had seen better days, the pair walked out, and again Jinx was struck by how quiet the building had become. "Are you sure the people are still here? I just can't imagine it being so quiet with them around."

"Hmm. The best way to explain it is that... I have limits." When Jinx raised a brow, Raven motioned her into the elevator, it too having seemingly been remade over the night and day. "I can only affect things with souls, in this way, so I nudged the place we are now, a bit into a more... suggestible direction."

"I guess that makes sense," Leaning back on the sculpted wall, Jinx wondered at the design. A sweeping, abstract pattern, like a great swirl of brush strokes. "So in a way where we are, and where they are now, are separate?"

Shrugging, Raven nodded once. "That would be one way to say it." Her form had taken on a more normal cast, a shifting black sundress that defied the eye, refusing to show depth. Raven's revealed skin shone like alabaster, while the Bloodmoon gem glinted brightly against her breast.

Nodding, Jinx strode from the foyer of the ramshackle hotel, noting that at least on the outside the place looked the same. "I'm not going to get lost again am I?"

"Not with me here," Raven assured, and the two made their way into the foot traffic that dominated the downtown press. As the afternoon passed on, the sun had more and more problems penetrating the clouds, and to her vague amusement the demon noted Jinx pouting by her side. "Expected it to be sunnier?"

Her hands tucked into the pockets of her coat, Jinx nodded. "Yeah, it's been chill so often, the sun earlier put me to sleep. But it's nice to get out a bit. Though at least it's not as dusty in the room now." They walked in silence some time then, as Jinx thought back over the last few days, letting things settle into her mind, the conversations and the death she'd seen. "Raven?"

"Hmm?" The former Titan's eyes seemed to be having trouble remaining in the semblance of her past's form, the violet fading in and out into dead white.

Considering her words, Jinx stopped and motioned to a small set of steps off to the left of the sidewalk Sitting, she ran a hand along the seam of her side, the stitch from her exertion causing the joining of the metal and flesh to ache. "What have you been up to today," she asked, eyeing the coming clouds warily. "I know I slept most of it off, but... well I guess I worry you'll be bored."

"Oh I have things to occupy myself with," the demon grinned, looking up as well. "And no, I don't get bored. I've learned patience, in degrees most couldn't understand." Standing again, she let the shadows of the alleyway slip around her shoulders, curling about her possessively. Wrenching forward, she ripped them free with a sound like screaming metal. "I was, in fact, working on your task while you slept."

This got Jinx's attention, as she'd winced from the sound of the shadows parting. It had disconcerted her that such a thing... could happen. It seemed Raven simply worked on a separate set of rules these days... "Again? Ah, right. You were busy last night, weren't you?"

"Somewhat, I just started a small project," shrugging off the comment, the demon, seemed to take a breath, smiling after. "Smells like rain."

The coppery tang that suddenly graced the breeze didn't seem to be the smell she usually associated with a fall storm, but she knew better than to write off Raven's words. "Should we head back?"

"No, I actually like the rain," was the demon's answer, as she walked back out into the path of pedestrian traffic, the shadows from the alley writhing about her shoulders like a scarf now. "Feel ready to continue?" People seemed to simply walk around her, giving her more space than needed. Oddly, as Jinx watched, regaining the last of her wind, none really looked at her. It seemed more that they simply felt the need to give her a wide berth.

Nodding, Jinx stifled the urge to wince as she stood. Her stamina since... shaking off the memories, she looked up at the quickly darkening sky. "So, you were working?"

"Yes, this one actually took some effort." Raven grinned slightly, and Jinx arched her brow in answer. "There was a lot to work with. Plus, this one had a separate purpose."

Intrigued, Jinx dusted herself off and jogged the few steps to bring her abreast her companion. "What have you done this time?"

"You say that so accusingly, for being the hand that wields the weapon."

Flinching, Jinx sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

Turning to favor her with a small chuckle, Raven practically skipped down the sidewalk, "I know, it was more a reminder, than anything. Besides, I know you still hesitate at my work." The pair passed into a park then, as the sun was nearing the western skyline, dipping just beneath the clouds that darkened the city. "You'll have to forgive me, I'm just a bit excited about this one."

Nearly having to jog to keep up with the shifting shadow that was Raven, Jinx wrinkled her nose again at the metallic scent in the air. "I hesitate I guess, because I've never really taken a life that way." Her companion seemed to stall at this, turning to regard her a moment.

Jinx's blood chilled, at the smile and the faint crimson glint that washed over the demon's eyes as she regarded her. "We should remedy that soon... "

"Raven I don't know-"

Suddenly she was laying on the ground, the wind knocked from her as something pressed down on her, pinning her. Jinx's single coral eye widened, at the four wicked slashes that dominated her vision amid a sea of midnight. "For all they did to you, you never thought to strike back? To take that which you were due?"

Shaking her head, Jinx fought to take a breath, the air about her thick and sluggish. "I... wasn't able. You remember how I was, still am."

A sharp talon of black ran along her arm, circling that place where only a few days prior, metal had joined flesh in an angry mesh of inflamed skin and swollen muscle. "Yes. I do." Her first word drew out into a hiss, while she seemed to consider Jinx's skin intently. "Would you take your vengeance if you could? If you were able?" Leaning forward, those same talons crept up along her stomach, causing muscles to clench in fear. "You see don't you?"

Her mouth worked, dry, as her breath hitched. "I don't understand-" Pain shot along her chest as those claws raked along her skin, making her breath catch. The sound was almost as painful as the sensation, as one scraped and hissed across metal plate and the other tore shallow lines along the curve of her breast, the path it traced almost a caress. "You're hurting me, Raven," she gasped, as those eyes, blank and white, bore into her.

"Of course I am. _You need to wake up_." That claw, just a moment before so cold and cruel, seemed now to heat almost unbearably, as looking down Jinx noticed her skin bared to the sky above where she lay beneath the demon. Raven looked up at her, face fully engulfed in the shadows she wore, only her eyes and the gems countering those lamplike eyes. As her breath raced, Jinx felt that hand again on her breast, and saw the skin she'd knew was torn and bloody to be whole and clean, and to her embarrassment, clenched her teeth against the gasp that threatened to escape her when the demon's palm slid along the hard peak of her breast. "Would you let another take what is yours? Will you let some foolishness of judgment keep you from claiming even your vengeance? The satisfaction of it, in your own hands?"

Mind racing at those words and the wildly conflicting sensations assaulting her, Jinx could only shake her head, so many meanings playing out in her mind. She barely had time to try and collect a single thread of thought, before the demon swept over her and the young woman found herself standing, wobbling where she was. "Raven?"

Looking back over her shoulder, no apparent sign of movement from that position just a moment ago, her companion raised a brow. "Would you? If I gave you the tools, what would you do?"

Swallowing a lump in her throat, the young woman had to catch her breath, heart racing before she answered. "I'd..." What would she do? She who'd never killed before.

_They took everything that made you_. She remembered it. The hopelessness, despair. Her ruined body, leg broken, shattered and bent so that the muscle torn beyond healing, and bone crushed to dust, that would never set. How it had tore at her, to even look at it, after. Then to know she'd lose it, to see that blank space where a _piece of her had been_. The terror, that wracked her. And more, again, with her arm. It wasn't that they hurt her, they ruined what she was. So much of her self was tied up in those ideas, her grace and poise. And after... what was left?

_They took those the one person that held you precious_. Tears welled up again, the memory of his face again sharpening into her mind, cutting through those high, hard walls of her psyche. In the time since, she'd nearly managed... No. Not to forget. To let it go, let herself stop caring. Was that fair? To that memory, to their happiness? Her teeth clenched, as her breath became hot and laced with small sounds, the memory tearing, ripping at her. Each moment. Each word. Every caress. The shared bed. The life she'd...

_Aaron_. She tilted her head up and felt the first few drops of rain, as her tears came freely now and a low keen pulled from her chest. Swallowing hard she tried to keep her mind from seeing, from comprehending his tiny, broken form. _What right_? He was innocent! _Because he was a symbol, of something yours. That life you tried for_.

Sorrow turned to hate, in a the echoing flash of lightning that lit the park, her eye snapping open, luminous with a flare of her power in the creeping dark. Raven stood before her, as mundane and like her former memory as she'd seen. The thick scent of blood was heavy in the air, as the rain started and stuttered, it's fury still contained. "What will you do?"

"I will kill them all," she answered, without pause. She breathed deep of the chill, coppery air and it seemed to curl into her lungs, spreading electric roots into her chest, not entirely an unpleasant feeling. Opening her eye, she noted that Raven was watching her with a smile, her hand outstretched. Taking it, she followed as the image of a young Titan seemed to circle the fountain, a pensive expression on her face. Mind suddenly clear of the fog she'd felt since the night that she'd summoned the demon, Jinx regarded her curiously, "what is it?"

"Oh, just waiting," Her expression brightening, Jinx couldn't help but shiver slightly at the bright smile, and the dead white eyes that accompanied it. "And also glad you won't waste the chance I'm working for, in you."

Nodding, the young woman figured as much, considering the strange conversation she'd just had. "You're... fixing me, so that I can help you. "

"Yes." The simple happiness the word carried made Jinx stumble, her mind rebelling at the image, ideal she'd had of the demon holding her hand, all the things she'd seen up to this point, putting such innocent joy in such an ideal. Blinking, she realized the two of them had sped to an awkward pace, and were skipping about the fountain, circling from the west to south as she took notice.

For a moment Jinx's incredulity overwhelmed her, then a giggle crept up, startling her as she let her feet move more confidently. Remembering Raven's words a few moments ago, her curiosity piqued, "What are we waiting for?" Again, thunder pealed, and to her surprise, the clouds so far above were lit briefly in scarlet.

Her eyes closed, Raven spun and raised her hands suddenly, causing Jinx to stumble and catch herself on the corner of the fountain. When her eyes opened, they were the same featureless, depthless white, but there was a mirth about their corners, "Oh, was just making sure the message I was sending was heard."

It started then, in great sheets. Rain, wet and hot and sticky simply drenched everything in a matter of seconds, and the surprise of it had Jinx call out. It stung her eye, and wiping it clear she noted that... "Is this blood?" The absurdity almost made her doubt, that such a torrent of the liquid could possibly be, but then she looked to Raven, skipping about in the dark puddles that formed on the ground and a laugh broke from her again. "It is isn't it?"

"Oh yes," the demon crooned, arms out and reaching, as like a child she splashed from puddle to puddle. "I worked hard on this, so forgive me enjoying the show."

Squinting up at the sun, as it hovered surly and wary, she grinned slowly. Standing, Jinx ran over to where Raven was grabbed the young woman's hand. A moment later they were circling about, laughing and splashing one another in the fountain, as the city around them descended into chaos.

– _Come on, I'll sing with you. Teach me a new song. Nobody answers me. Nobody sings to me. – _

"This is the place."

Robin scanned about, as the rest of his team for the search and the JLA agents arranged themselves across from the dilapidated hotel. "Seems kind of..."

"Old," Garfield finished, as the young man looked up over the thing, huge and crumbling in the darkening afternoon. Starfire nodded a mute agreement, as Batgirl took faith by the shoulders, some silent conversation passing between the two.

"I'm fine," the psychic assured the quiet woman, shrugging off her hands. Turning to regard the ancient seeming face of the hotel, she winced, betraying her recent claim. "Yeah, this is the right place."

They'd only brought a small team, as Robin was paranoid that whatever that shock wave was, would start showing it's nature at some point while they were out. Plus, Superboy and Wonder Girl were on routine patrol, so with their numbers stretched so thin, he could only spare three of the Titans, counting himself, and the JLA team. "I'm not excited about splitting up on this one. We all go in, all stay together. Understood?" When his team affirmed the order, he started across the street, noting how the air itself seemed thick here. It was almost like a heavy humidity, he noted.

Walking along the sidewalk, he noted Faith pause, and look about herself tensely. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, nearby, but he stopped as well, eyes cast about warily. Scanning the storefronts before him, Robin also felt a sense of... "Where is the..."

"Hotel? Yes, that was... strange." Faith turned about, the groups sudden stop on the sidewalk, not to mention their peculiar garb, upsetting foot traffic. Pointing back behind them nearly a block, the team could make out the old masonry and steep rise of the old building, and changed their direction to double back. Counting steps as if that would help, Robin figured the doors to the place would be no more than a couple hundred paces, but made sure his eyes were kept steadily locked on the rise of the building's face. As they closed on it, he noted the oddity of the thing's architecture, how it differed from those near it. There, a modern law firm, or banking office with it's great gleaming face of glass. Again, nearby, a set of multistory houses, winding along the road beyond the hotel's face.

Garfield started a moment later, as they passed a small bus terminal. "Dude, what the hell?" Turning, sharply, he sent people scrambling about, as he ran back a few steps and looked across the street they were walking along. "Guys!?"

Following the young man's gaze, Robin felt a cold sense of dread creep along his spine. There, on the other side of the street somehow, and one away, rose their target's uneven face. "What the fuck." Robin's uncharacteristic curse brought the team up short, as the young man raked his glance around the street they were on. "How is that happening? I had my eyes on it... or... " rubbing hard at his temple, Robin growled. "No, I didn't. I started analyzing the goddamn architecture around it."

"I was watching the sidewalk, counting the concrete blocks, estimating our time of arrival," Starfire admitted, shaking her head slowly. "This is most peculiar."

Nodding, Faith's eyes seemed to bore into the distant rise of ancient mortar and glass. "It doesn't like people coming near it, unless it wants them. This is... bigger than I had expected."

Robin spared her a piercing glance. "You're talking like this place is alive."

Her laugh wasn't amused. "If you could see what I do... you'd not had said that."

As they recollected themselves, the team moved warily, Robin setting up a system of stop-checks every thirty seconds. As if mocking their earlier efforts, the old hotel almost jumped out at them as they turned a corner, suddenly all that they could see as it dominated the block, a great mass of crumbling mortar around stark angles and buttresses that defied modern design. Robin's sense of dread increased, as the image of the place as a cathedral woke other memories in his mind. "Strange old place," he commented, not meaning for the fear he was feeling to creep into those words.

No one felt the need to say anything about it.

Strangely, the lobby was empty, their footsteps echoing silently as they paused briefly within that portal. "Hello?" Her voice, which they'd expected to echo, was simply swallowed up by the vaulted room and it left Starfire feeling empty and cold. "I do not like it here."

"I don't either... not a bit," Faith shivered uncontrollably for a moment, as the flash of light from outside, a strike of lightning that heralded the coming storm, painted a most... disturbing afterimage in her mind. "Did...?"

Garfield was leaning on the glass doors, shaking his head slowly. "This place smells wrong, guys. I really don't want to go in there."

Robin rounded on the young man and fixed him with a glare, "We need to see what's happening here. If we don't, then likely no one will, as obviously the police have no idea what's going on. So c'mon," patting the young man on the shoulder, the detective hazarded a glance into the windowed doors, the image of the room behind him reflected -

Spinning around, his eyes wide, Robin felt his blood chill. "What the hell! I just saw..." people, twisted, tormented ideals and images, all weaved and meshed one into another, as if a wax museum had it's displays all melted together, where the far wall was. Not moving from his place, the Titan swept wide eyes over the expanse of oddly rich wall paper, décor and ornamentation that met his eyes. "What?"

"Do you see...?" Faith swallowed, as her eyes darted about, her breath quickening nervously. She leaned on Batgirl unsteadily, trying to use the woman's strength to augment her own. "This place is wrong. Something has... defiled it."

It was then that what had been eating at Robin clicked into place. "Faith. That display. It was displaying souls, right?"

"Yes... oh."

"Then... where are they?" His question wasn't answered, as he looked about the room. Listening, all he could hear were the muffled sounds from outside, and even those were distant. No one walked by the building. No taxi's let out or picked up people. Even as the improbability of it all hit him, the condition of the place, the lack of old and decay he'd expected, contradicted what he knew to be simple truth. Someone had to work here, live here. Or this place would not be in such good repair.

Scanning the room, Faith shook her head slowly. "Everywhere. There are people here, but..." striding over to the far side of the room, she ran a hand along the wall and shuddered, by the elevator controls. "Lets look around and get this over with." The cheerful ding of the control acknowledging her rang out in the room, as all but Batgirl hesitantly moved to join her.

Robin moved to the hotel counter, peering behind and around the thing, looking to find some trace or sign. "Shouldn't we check this floor though?"

"I can almost guarantee whatever is in this place, isn't going to be on this floor," she muttered, hands wrapping around herself as the needle that showed the elevator's progress closed in on them. The group by the shuttered doors as one shuddered, as a heavy, echoing thump rang through the doors.

Looking up at the needle, Garfield swallowed audibly. "Man, fifteen floors off, and it's already freaking me out."

_Tha-whump._

Another shuddering impact, and Faith winced, her hand trailing up to her temple. "Maybe..." The elevator had reached the eighth floor and again, heavier, the sound rattled though the doors.

Starfire's hands radiated, as she regarded the elevator suspiciously, the light from her power reflecting sickly off the walls and doors. "Perhaps we should move back?"

_Tha-whump._

"Jesus man, fuck this," Garfield scrambled away, giving himself distance to ready an attack or to defend himself, choosing a velociraptor for the moment, considering the close quarters and his own mental state. His teammates were in little better shape, as they spread about giving each other room.

Watching the needle, Faith barely choked out a yell as the thing dinged, surprising her as it reached their floor. Glancing around apologetically, she didn't complain as Batgirl stepped in front of her, waiting for those doors to open. She watched the others preparing themselves as well, and suddenly felt the lack of her normal powers, a dull ache in her mind.

The doors stayed shut, for a long moment as they waited, and finally after a count of five Robin moved forward. His eyes played over the needle that called out the elevator's progress, the panel to call it, the large paneled doors, the finish gleaming an unusual off white. As he reached to test the doors directly, his fingers inches from them, that damned sound pealed out from behind them again, and as Robin analyzed it against the other times, he realized whatever it was was slowing.

As he was considering this, the mechanism that held the doors shut suddenly screamed into life, and with a crackling wrench the doors slammed open, jolting Robin from his introspection. It was an older elevator as well, matching the building, so for a moment his mind had difficulty placing what he saw.

Behind the shuttered doors, was the trellis ironwork of the gate, that like so many ancient elevators, used to be the totality of their walls. On it's own, it would have been a nostalgic note inside the building, but it was less that it was there, than what it restrained that caught their attention. Glistening wetly, a massive expanse of veined and pink something seemed to be caged, filling the booth to bursting.

As the doors opened, Faith cried out and scampered back, nearly falling as she pointed. The others, so taken with the grotesque view, hadn't noticed the wash of blood that was released as the doors clamored open. "What is this," Robin asked, his voice tinged with disbelief in the last few moments. Stepping gingerly back to avoid the rapidly expanding pool that was escaping the elevator, he looked back to his team, for some sign.

_Tha-whump._

Inside that gatework of iron, the massive wall of flesh shuddered, shaking the room with the force of it. With the heavy noise came a fresh torrent of blood, cascading over it's surface and across the floor, inching closer to the Titans as they backed away, confusion on their faces. Batgirl, seemingly unfazed, regarded the gate with something bordering on curiosity. "A heart," she announced quietly.

The words could have been a spell, as when they left her lips the metal grating that restrained the massive organ shivered and bent, with a creaking of old bolts and jagged edges. Cassandra barely had time to whip her cape over herself and Faith, before the thing ripped across the surface of that flesh, tearing great fissures into it that sprayed the room they were in with blood that reached the front doors themselves.

"What the fuck," Garfield looked down at himself, the spray having caught him like the others. Shaking hard, he grimaced as the sound of the blood impacting the floor sounded wet and loud in his ears. "Just what the fuck is going on here?"

Faith was at her limit. "Out, I have to get out of here," scrambling from behind Cassandra, she made a line for the doors, and wrenched them open, almost flinching from the sound of the old joints and hinges complaining. Sparing a glance to the gruesome traveler in the booth, the others followed the woman, as they tried to shake the bulk of the blood from their clothes.

Outside, the darkened street greeted them quietly, it's lack of traffic and noise anything but comforting after the surreal experience inside. Almost as an afterthought, Robin pulled a small bit of the ripped flesh that had splattered him and put it in an evidence vial, stowing it numbly in his belt.

"No... no no no," Faith's muttering roused him, and he looked to the woman, as she stared wide-eyed up at the sky. Following her gaze, he flinched as the first drops of rain hit his face. Reaching up to wipe them free, he paused, his hand frozen as he looked at the sidewalk around them.

Red. Each drop that fell painted it crimson, the drops viscous and heavy. "We need to go. Now." Looking to Batgirl, he just nodded as woman tried to shield Faith from as much of the fall as possible. Distantly, he could hear the sounds of people screaming, and it occurred to him that such a thing was natural, considering. Recognizing the initial stages of shock, he shook his head hard to clear the images, trying to reclaim his mind before it traveled too far into reaction. Robin needed his logic, here. Letting his instincts and reactions rule him would be a disaster.

The torrent hit them just before Faith bent space and sent them hurtling back to the Tower, her whimper a counter to the thunder of rain that they'd left behind them.

**Day four; XL Terrestrial and an unexpected visit.**

– _I'll give you a piece of sweet, melting, chocolate. Wasn't it delicious? Come, let's sing again. – _

Cyborg's eye winked red, a color Robin felt, he'd had quite enough of that day. Shortly the lights came up in the room and the eerie glow was replaced by his friend's familiar face. "What do you think?"

Tossing the reports on the table, Robin settled his chin against a palm, "Another Hive death. The database matched the tissue to XLT, with an high probability."

"Probability? It's not sure?" Cyborg sat and leafed through the report, noting the photo, a rather bad quality one at that. "I thought he'd gone back home."

Nodding, Robin turned his chair and looked out of the Tower windows, still glazed with blood as the rain continued. He didn't even want to think about what this would do the the water table... "He did. Word was, he came back for a meeting that he never got to. Hell the Watchtower just picked up his ship from orbit." Raking a hand through his hair, the young man heaved a sigh. "You read the reports?"

"Yeah," Cyborg's tone didn't carry much, but wariness was apparent. "Well this makes it a bit more..."

"Believable?" Robin spun around, and smacked his hands down on the tabletop. "That's the problem. I don't want to believe this. We have a superpowered serial killer on the loose, and the only things we have to go on, are the body parts they leave behind. Speaking of, has anyone found the _rest_ of XLT?"

Shaking his head, the other Titan let the reports slide back onto the table. "Nothing yet. Have the PD's looked into the hotel?"

"They can't find it."

His teammate regarded him in disbelief a moment. "You're kidding right?"

"That place is strange, you weren't there," tapping his finger, the young man stared out at the storm that still raged, noting with some relief that the red glazing that the Tower had received was being broken by clean water. He'd wondered if they'd have to wait days for real rain, to do the work of washing the blood away, knowing well that the psychological effect on the city having to sit in such for a long period of time would be severe. Already, they were being flooded with requests to assist riot control, but Robin refused. The National Guard and local police had to handle this one, the Titans needed to remain alert for what caused it. "It took us half an hour to just get there, from across the street. Something about it just turns you in circles."

Cyborg shook his head and stood, "well, lets take a break from this. The others are in the main room, it'd do well to come out."

"Yeah," he answered, at a loss for what else to say. Morale was horrible, with so much having happened and no real leads, but as he thought about it, something just didn't fit. Or did fit, and he just didn't have the right perspective to see it. "Cy, what am I missing here?"

"Hm? About the case?" A nod was his answer. "Well, if anything, I say something like this narrows the list of suspects down. This was... " the Titan just let his voice trail off there. As the pair moved into the main room, they noted the television on, a subdued group gathered around it various states of attention as the game played.

Garfield was coping in his usual way, drowning out the images in his mind with something else. Star, Kon-el and Wonder Girl were off to the side, chatting quietly, their faces strained but not severe – he knew that some would be shaken by the recent events, but out of them all, those three could deal with such best. On the topic of coping...

Batgirl stood her constant vigil over Faith, the older woman huddled under her blanket as the two had tea. Faith, the psychic sensitive they'd been sent to help track down the killer, was fairing much worse than the others. Whatever was going on seemed to be hitting her the hardest, and he had to admit, the things that were going on were not easy to deal with. Having to deal with the burden of enhanced senses while the normal ones were already strained, had to be taking quite a toll on her.

Cyborg and Robin had just joined the rest, when the storm outside seemed to weaken, finally blowing itself out. Normally the weather in this part of the Bay was milder, so along with it's... unusual properties, the storm itself had been odd. Despite it, they settled into a tense night of trying to forget what was plaguing the city they called home, and had been sent to protect.

It was into this thick silence, that Garfield and Faith both seemed to stiffen, eyes darting about warily. "What is it, Gar? Hey, you're letting those- awwe man." Cyborg dropped the controller with a sigh, his partner on the team mission having lost focus. "What's up?"

Faith answered for him. "Someone's here."

"Nice alarm system, but she's a little... outdated, don't you think?" The veteran Titans all looked up in shock, while their newer members took up defensive stances, unused to intruders making their way directly into the tower.

Looking over them slowly, Raven dipped down to the floor, her cloak billowing and writhing about her form. In truth, had they not been party to that battle, and her long-time teammates, the Titans wouldn't have recognized her from the girl in their memory. Taller, or perhaps drawn, the apparition that appeared there bore little resemblance to their teammate. Those same eyes, legacies of her father's blood, sat poised in the hooded cloak, like four points of a damned constellation. Above them glinted the faint red of her Anja gem, and below, a new light, pulsing bright and scarlet where her heart would be in that darkness. Little more than a shadow, it was the voice that brought her name to memory.

"Raven..." Starfire's voice seemed to solidify the shadow's wavering, and the woman they'd known briefly appeared, her face older, cold, before the cloak's masking stole the image away.

"Yeah, been a while hasn't it." A dry sound, Raven's laughter settled around the room. "I just figured I'd drop in, see how the old haunt was holding up."

Cyborg looked about between his teammates, and his old friend and, hazarding it, took a hesitating step forward. "Wow, Rae... it's been what?"

"On year, eleven months, and four days. Time really flies, doesn't it?" Her chill tone stopped the Titan, where he'd thought to give the woman at least a small hug. A small part of his mind questioned his sanity at this, considering what she was, and he had seen. "So it looks like things really haven't changed around here. Few new faces," she nodded to Impulse, Kon-el and Cass Sandsmark, before looking over the other Titans where they sat or stood, rooted. "And some old friends."

"Arkham has been wondering what happened, Raven," Robin's words snapped her out of whatever reverie the form before them had been in, and again that shadow, the stuff of it licking at the air like angry smoke, writhed and whipped about. "What happened?"

Raven shrugged, her eyes raking over him as the smile in her voice dripped venom, "Oh, you know. Had to take a call. They don't really let you have small things, in those places. Windows. Air. Food. God forbid I needed a restroom."

"We didn't know," his voice low, Garfield cut Robin off, shaking his head. "We didn't."

Her laughter was a rattle of dead leaves. "I know. You never asked. Or visited," gathering herself, the form seemed to catch on a current of air, and was lifted back to the windows, before settling again. "I could tell. Feel all those minds. But I never felt _any of you_.

"Well," gesturing about her, the smile she favored them with was a glimpse down the maw of madness, a darker ink scrawled on her already midnight form, "now I'm home." At their horrified expressions, she laughed again. "Not here. How awkward... no. I'm only here to deliver a message."

"Message," Robin gritted the question out, his teeth clenched. He could feel her, now. So close that tenuous bond they had snapped back into place and through it he felt... he wanted to bash his head against a wall, to dispel the images. Whatever this was, it wasn't their Raven.

Nodding, the form seemed to draw in on itself suddenly, the place it had been empty, the only proof of it's existence a stray shadow, writhing against the floor. "Just as I said, that I'm back.

"Good night, Titans," The voice trailed off to silence, as the team sat back in shock. With a yell, Garfield threw his controller at the afterimage she'd left, and the hard plastic shattered as it impacted the wall.

The new team members wouldn't know, of course, as the veterans all looked from one to another, affirming what had happened. As one the nodded and moved to the kitchen, the same thought circling about their minds.

_I will kill you. All of you._ The message was clear, spoken to each of them, no clearer than if she'd pulled them aside and whispered it in their ear.

– _Apples and honey. If I mix their red and gold, will it turn black, the same color as the sky? – _

-

A/N: Chapter dedicated to Flandre Scarlet.


	6. Chapter 5

_**Vermilion Ascendant**_

_Chapter Five_

_Dawning of Her Delirium, part two._

Connor looked over to Wonder Girl as she blinked back and forth from where the strange apparition had been, to the senior Titans off in their huddle. Robin, Beast Boy, Starfire and Cyborg sat around the kitchen table, seemingly content to speak amongst themselves as the rest of their team sat befuddled and lost. Seeing no change in that attitude, Superboy raised his hand, "Um, excuse me. What the hell was that about?"

A few of those of the old guard shot him and the others in the room apologetic glances for their silence, but Robin only looked back, annoyed. "Sorry, it's an old issue. Not something you would know about."

"Well "It" just came into the Tower, said hello and left without so much as mussing the carpet," standing and motioning to the place Raven had been, the young hero glared back at Robin, not giving an inch. "I can't really say I'm speaking for the rest of us, but this is a little fucking intense right now. It just rained blood all over the city for hours, there's a serial killer out there with a penchant supers, and now Raven is looking like she's been shopping in Tim Burton's closet." Catching his breath, Connor looked to the others who weren't in the old guard, and saw them nodding their agreement, along with Batgirl and Faith in their own corner of the room. "I think we're due some explanation."

"Look," reaching up, Robin squeezed the bridge of his nose between a finger an thumb. "I'm sorry, that came out all wrong." Standing, he gestured the other back into the main room, regretting his old habits kicking in and putting a rift in the team. That wasn't the way to handle things like a leader. "I'm just somewhat worried where this is all going, with Raven showing up, along with everything else that's going on."

Cyborg's head turned sharply at this, "You're not saying-"

"You heard her the same as me," gesturing to Beast Boy and Starfire, Robin shook his head slowly. "And whether you want to admit it or not, she fits the profile of what could have killed Billy and the others." Looking out the window to the still frothing bay, the waves churning the bloodied tides with their motion, Robin considered a moment the day, before swallowing nervously. "She'd also be able to turn XLT into... that storm earlier."

It was Cassie, Wonder Girl's, turn to speak out this time. "Wait, you mean that it was _her_, that little girl in the video?" When Beast Boy nodded quietly, she pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms about herself tightly. "OK, so let me just get this strait. After her dad's big mess, she got locked up for going insane, and now she's back and pissed." Shaking her head, blonde hair waving in the motion, the young woman looked out the windows as well, "why the Hive killings? It doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't," he agreed. True, the Hive had been their enemies on many occasions, even going so far as to ally themselves with the Brotherhood of Evil on some occasions, but there was no cause or reason for Raven to prey on them the way she had. Even Eddie, barely a presence in the Titans before she was imprisoned, shouldn't have been able to garner the attention that had ended with his evisceration and gruesome death.

"She wasn't insane," Batgirl's long periods of silence made anything the woman said have a rather large impact, and at this very moment, Robin would have paid anything to just have the woman be quiet again. "The JLA feared what she would do, once free of her restraints."

"Restraints," the word said quietly, still had a heavy implication of blame as it left Wonder Girl's lips. "You mean she was like... locked up somehow?"  
Shaking his head, Cyborg gestured vaguely and frowned. "No, it's all in her file, but in short, she had to control her emotions, was told that all her life, that losing control would let her father control her." Slamming a hand against his palm, the metal Titan growled, "of course it had nothing to do with him. The paranoia and close-mindedness of the monks that raised her was borderline psychological abuse conditioning."

Faith, silent up till this point looked at him questioningly. "The JLA records show her as having massive personality deformation and a psyche that was borderline into incomprehensible."

"Lady, I've been there. Literally," gesturing to the still preoccupied Beast Boy, who nodded absently at the comment, Cyborg continued. "First off, she wasn't crazy. Not like that. She was wholly in control of herself, but it really cost her. She had to close down most of her emotions so much that it was hard for her to relate to a lot."

Looking from the heroes who obviously knew the woman, to those as lost as she, Faith tried to imagine the young woman then, fighting along side these people. She could see that lack now, like a chair that had gone missing in museum exhibit. It's lack was blatant, but unless you had seen it before, little would hint at the source of the scene's wrongness. "Why would the JLA make a file that was false?"

"Raven and Zatanna did not have the best relationship," Starfire answered darkly. Faith waited for an elaboration, but receiving none, considered the mentioned woman. Zatanna did have a lot of influence... and there had been that question in the past with brainwashing people. A simple records omission or change would not be so difficult, in her place.

Faith's eyes refocused, as Cyborg made a loud point, "...Really? I mean who's fault was that?"  
"I'm sorry?" She missed the question, and was summarily lost. Faith blinked as the man seemed to deflate from his rage.

"I was just saying it wasn't fair. We were told to back down. Let it go," Shaking his head, the man sat heavily and looked at his hands. "The things her dad did to her... it killed her you know? She was so afraid of death, not because of what it's like to most people."

Leaning forward, Faith tilted her head quizzically. "How do you mean?"

"Her soul-self, remember?" Cyborg flexed his human hand, and smiled ruefully. "She confided in me a long time ago, about it. Working in the basement on something, smeared with oil the both of us. She was afraid of death, because it was just her human side that would die. The soul-self is, well, like a demon. Lacking a host, it's just that. Her, only without a body."

"And she worried it'd be just the demon her father had given her," Faith replied, seeing more clearly the person the JLA had sent her and Cassandra after.

"That seems to have been the assumption that the JLA went on, as well," Robin stated.

"So they locked her in a box, and told us all she'd be OK," Beast Boy murmured from his place on the couch, still glaring balefully at the wall. "How were we supposed to know?"

"We didn't ask," was Starfire's weary answer.

That was the bottom line here, wasn't it, Robin thought. There it was, staring them in the face. They'd abandoned her, left her to the JLA's good graces, without worry, without second thought. Abandoned her, when she needed them the most. Wasn't it Raven, all on her own that had defeated Trigon?

All her life lived in fear and mental turmoil for nothing. Eighteen years of her life, all of it in fact, leading up to one point, and then what? Her friends and allies betray her, and leave her to rot in a shoebox – after she won. Way to show her earth's sense of gratitude. It made sense, then, as he considered it, why she was so angry. Not only angry... but vengeful enough she had come to tell them directly, deliver the message herself. _I will kill you. All of you_.

"It matches," Faith's words were faint, but in the silence that had fallen since the veteran Titans had gone still, they rang out clear enough. "The things I've felt, match her." Sitting back with a sigh, the woman closed her eyes again, bow knit in concentration. "That thing in the center of the city, that's growing like a cancer feels the same."

Batgirl rose then, standing and moving out of the room. Robin stalled her by the door, "Cassandra, what are you doing?"

Shifting away from his outstretched hand, the woman only offered two words in explanation. "My job."

The rest of the Titans looked on as the woman quietly swept out, leaving a tensed and aggravated Boy Wonder in her wake. Where the other Titans sat in their contemplations, Beast Boy spoke up first, "Robin, is your entire family nuts or something?"

Robin turned to him with a sigh, the comment irking him more than a little. "You really have no room to talk." Glaring at one another, the detective was the first to break the contest. "Sorry. This is all... it feels like a nightmare."

"I know." Garfield looked away for a moment, nodding. "I was out of line. What are we going to do?"

Striding over to the Tower's control systems, the young man rested his hand along side the access panel, his face clouded in thought. Shortly he keyed in a brief sequence, the lights along the room that indicated the alert status of the Tower going red. "I'm going to contact the JLA, and ask for backup. We can't handle her on our own. Everyone's taking shifts, and we're bunking up in main room for the time being. Break out the sleeping bags."

oOo

A knock on the door pulled Jinx's attention from the water running down her back, etching at the blood dried onto her skin. "Yeah? What is it Raven?"

"May I come in for a moment?"

Amused by the idea of Raven asking her for permission, considering the last few days and the peculiarity of their conversations, the young woman smiled. "Sure." Jinx wasn't historically a terribly shy or understated person, though she never really ascribed to the skintight leotards and spandex suits her sometimes allies had sported. Despite this, the alterations and changes to her body from it's rebuilding at Cyborg's hands had left her self conscious.

To say she had lost a lot her grace was an understatement. Then again, having half her torso be flat, blocky metal, while the other was supple feminine flesh managed to be a harsh reminder of what exactly she'd lost.

It was that impulse that had her checking the frosted windows of the shower again, as she scrubbed at her skin and hair.

Raven slipped into the bathroom and settled against the wall, the room hazed slightly with the moisture in the air. Behind the glass she could see the mottled profile of the young woman as she washed the blood from herself. "How did you sleep?"

"Surprisingly well, actually," Jinx replied, shaking her head slowly. "After we got back I just... crashed on the couch. Sorry if the blood won't come out of the cloth."

A light chuckle was her answer. "Don't worry. I think I managed to get all the blood out of that some time ago."

Pulling her hair in front of her face, the woman nodded absently, "Alright." Again she scrubbed at it, the water running clear and clean as it passed through the vividly pink stands. "Did you... "

"Fix something again?" Her words carried that tone Jinx had come to recognize as what passed for playfulness to the demoness. "Yes, though only something minor this time."

Nodding slowly, Jinx ran her eye along the lock between her fingers again. Before, since the incident that had spurred on this chain of events, her hair had dulled and faded to a pale mockery of it's once vivid color. With it went her powers, or it was simply a result of the same. She'd not kept it up in her trademark style since leaving the Hive, but Jinx had never considered dying it. It was part of her. Since that day, like most of her own sense of self, it had died as well.

Here it was, though, bright and alive as the water washed over it. "So, was that like a conditioner I'm going to have to apply again, or is this here to stay?"

Raven laughed, a quiet rustle of breath, "No, it will stay."

"So that was XL, then? I thought he was gone for good. Well before, I suppose he really is now," a small laugh punctuated her words. Her voice didn't carry concern, so much as a distant kind of curiosity. Even in her own ears it seemed hollow.

Raven watched, as a small droplet of water fell along the glass of a mirror, the single trail it left clearly reflecting the wall in it's passing. A corner of her lip quirked as in it's passing, a sliver of reality was revealed. "The Hive is worried. Channels were opened, an alert sounded," the water droplet settled along the seam of the mirror where it met the casement, the red wallpaper reflecting luridly inside it's liquid lens. "Such a thing makes it so easy to find them."

"Complaining?" Jinx's hands swept along her skin, scrubbing gently, as the seams along her neck and torso were rough and angry. Her body didn't adjust like Cyborg's to the augments, something in her nature not letting them blend as easily. Inflamed skin, sore, swollen muscles and the constant ache of them were a constant reminder not only of their presence, but their cause. That, she admitted was the real comfort in the things Raven had done. Less constantly was her mind wracked with the reminder of those changes. Through the glass, she could see Raven shaking her head, as well as the odd distortion that had the walls look fluid in the mist. Despite how long she'd been without her eye, that never seemed to pass.

"No, they are your vengeance. I won't complain about easy prey." Shuffling, Raven lay her hand against the wall, stilling the restless shifting that seemed to come when her attention wasn't solidly on keeping the Hotel in it's semblance of normalcy.

She hadn't lied to Jinx, when she said that her limitations with altering reality was limited to those things with a soul. Though perhaps taking all the people inside the building, and binding their flesh and bone into the thing while weaving their essences into it so as to better make it supple to her alterations was not what Jinx had in mind when she had asked if they could "clean up the place". Smiling, Raven was quietly glad she'd not needed to lie, with Jinx's lack of inquiry into the stocked pantry. "Besides, I have my own agenda, after all."

"Oh, how did that go?"

"I do not think my work will be boring, from here on out," was the demon's reply.

Jinx considered that, and felt herself smiling despite the implications of Raven's words. Last night, the rain and her strangely heated conversation had left her very clear headed. She had to admit, considering and weighing the options of the ritual she'd performed, how things had gone was not in her plan. "Hey, Raven?"

"Yes Jinx?"

"The Bloodmoon... how it's worded in the texts wasn't all that specific," hands stilling along her hips, the woman leaned back against the tile, focusing on the black streak along the red and faint yellow that was Raven through the glass. "I was wondering what was supposed to happen. Was I just going to end up in hell, or what?"

Raven grinned slightly, looking up as the young woman's anxiety and fear came through her words, coloring them easily. "Worried now, Jinx? Is the thing you summoned, or how it goes about it's work of your vengeance not pleasing?"

"No! No, it's not that," Jinx laid back against the tile, wrapping her arms about herself. "I guess... well. Shouldn't I feel strange? When I started that ritual, I figured one of two things would happen. Either I'd fail, and nothing would happen, or a demon would show up, accept the contract and I'd die."

"And what happened didn't fit into either of those expectations," Looking through the glass at the woman, Raven let herself smile, slipping over to stand by the shower where Jinx lazed in the warm water. "Tell me what's on your mind."

Jinx let herself relax, her head back against the tile. "Is it strange to feel worried? You're remaking me, undoing all the things that had given me a reason to want revenge. Why?" Pushing away from the cooler tile, the woman leaned into the water and let it cascade over her, pulling the chill of the air from her body. "You said it was so I could work my own vengeance. That wasn't part of the contract, so I'm curious why."

"Don't you want that, for yourself-"

"That's not what I asked," interrupting the demon, Jinx let her head bang against the shower stall with a thump. "Just... listen for a minute, OK?"

Raven blinked, regarding the odd shifting of angles and colors that was the woman behind that glass. "Alright."

"Thanks," closing her eye, the former thief steadied her thoughts, picking them into a line. "I don't want to sound ungrateful. I am grateful, for what you're doing. What you've done," again, she ran a hand over the place where her arm was now whole, and not a twisted mockery of human and machine. "Despite being a Titan once I don't think that... really explains what you're doing for me. And being a demon makes even less sense. Why should you care about that? About me, and my condition. About whether or not I can get revenge myself."

"Would you rather speak of this outside the shower? It may take a small while."

"I'm kind of comfortable. The heat keeps me from aching so much. As long as the water stays warm," the former thief replied, considering that same point herself.

Chuckling, Raven shook her head. "The water won't get cold, so here then." Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, the demoness sighed. "Saying it was the right thing, probably doesn't mean much. Besides, what kind of reason is that, for a demon?" Raven leaned against the wall nearest the shower door and to Jinx's surprise, sighed. "Do you remember the talk we had at the diner?"

Nodding, Jinx remembered it. How Raven had impressed on her the ideas then. The loss of humanity's will to survive. It's inability now, to save itself, and later, the hesitant, almost tentative admission of her own loneliness. "I remember."

Silence dominated the room then, as Jinx watched the water, dripping from he angles and points of her body and down, to swirl and sweep through the drain. Raven watched her in turn, mind uncharacteristically cloudy, unfocused. She remembered the thoughts Jinx had entertained that morning, after watching the broken woman please herself. Remembered feeling that guilt-laden spike of pleasure as the woman lay, stunned beneath her in the park, Raven's claws having just bloodied her in a fit of anger. Raven remembered being alone for nearly two years, locked away and forgotten. "Perhaps... I have made an error," she wanted to laugh at herself, then. How could she forget this? That drive humans have to question, to forget the positive in light of doubt and suspicion.

It _was_ selfish. She remade Jinx for her own reasons, and pushed her to enact her revenge for the same. She turned then without further comment but before the first step landed, a hand took her shoulder. Her eyes swept up a length of wet skin and met Jinx's, her expression unreadable. "Don't go."

"I don't know how to explain myself," or why I have the urge to do so, Raven added silently. Still, she didn't move. Jinx seemed to become aware of her own nakedness and shivered, pulling a towel from the wall and wrapping it about herself.

Her eye cast about, while her hand remained. Sighting another towel, she pulled it free and wrapped it about her hair, stepping into the chill air. "Walk with me?" When Raven nodded, Jinx seemed to relax slightly, and to Raven's surprise slipped her damp hand into Raven's own, pulling her along with. "When you set yourself up to die, make that decision, anything after that isn't what you're expecting seems... strange," she said, walking to the bedroom, the demon following after.

Raven nodded, understanding that idea well enough. She had been in that place herself, when her father had destroyed her. Imagine her surprise to still be alive, albeit not as she'd been before. "I understand."

"Can you imagine how strange it is?" Jinx released her hand, as they entered the room and Jinx went about, searching for clothes. Finding a shirt and pair of jeans, she looked back at the demon and blushed slightly, shrugging. The towel dropped and she hurriedly pulled the pants on. "I never expected to feel... like living, again. So it's odd to also feel nervous about losing that. I guess that's why I asked about the Bloodmoon ritual."

Sweeping her eyes along the lines of Jinx's body as she bent to clothe herself, Raven nodded once, "I suppose that is only to be expected. And with the nature of things, me... you have reason to worry." Wisps of shadow curled about her cloak, as Raven paced to the windows, opening the blinds to the daylight more.

Jinx sat down on the bed, noting distantly this was a room she'd never slept in. A small laugh escaped her at that realization. "I suppose that makes sense. What about... well you then? Have you changed your mind?"

"About my due?" From the corner of her eye, the demon noted Jinx's nod. "Would it disturb you terribly if I said yes?"

Swallowing, Jinx closed her eye and shrugged slightly. A small disturbance on the bed startled her, and she turned her head, seeing Raven sitting there, holding a brush. "I don't know. What is a soul? What is hell? What does a demon do with a soul they... well own?"

Raven seemed to go still, before a smile crept up her lips. "What would I do? Ask if I could brush your hair." Jinx's laugh bubbled up and lit the room more, and nodding she slipped into the floor at Raven's feet. Hands unwound the towel around her hair, and was taken away. Closing her eye, Jinx leaned back against Raven's legs, as hesitant hands ran over her head, through her hair. "I haven't forgotten that you were the one that freed me. Nor have I forgotten that it was your acceptance of my own agenda that lets me work my vengeance as well," Raven was preoccupied, her thoughts as haphazard and confused as Jinx's own. She simply had longer to become used to such things. Used to her inner turmoil and stifling it, burying it, and sometimes murdering it in it's sleep.

"As for hell... well. It's a selfish place. Full of selfish people. The weight of sin, is that it draws one further and further into one's self." Coral locks parted, were ran slowly through the teeth of the brush and set aside, and the process repeated. To her surprise, Jinx turned and lay her head against Raven's knees, as she slipped an arm around her calf, hugging that leg to herself. Blinking, the demon regained her sense and continued with her brushing. "Those in hell don't see one another. Only their own demons, and the punishments they feel that they deserve."

"So there's no court for the damned? No judge there, reading you your sins?" Her cloak, Jinx noted, was soft. Despite having seen it crawl and move seemingly of it's own will, it didn't disturb her as it slipped around her hip, curling about her warmly.

Raven shook her head, sweeping the brush through the fall of hair in her hand, "No. Sin is a measure of one's own guilt, their own need to be punished. Even in that, a soul's selfishness is evident. The damned chose that which they suffer, and faced with a life's guilt, all their wrongs without the masks they'd built for themselves, it's always what they deserve."

A small sound, possibly an affirmative left Jinx's lips. "And demons? What do they do with souls from contracts like mine?"

Pausing, Raven sighed and motioned for Jinx to turn. Shifting slowly, the young woman did so, laying her head back again against the demon's knees, as the cloak spread, creeping down and around the young woman. "I suppose they vent all their envy, or whatever drive had created them. Demons are just an impression, an egregore."

"A what," Raven stiffened, as Jinx's fingers trailed along the inside of the cloak.

Stilling herself, Raven took a breath. "An idea, given form by many, many minds believing in it. It's something people do, often. Give an idea an identity. With enough time and force of belief, that identity comes to be it's own, separate thing."

A minute passed, as Raven ran the last few strands of hair through the brush's teeth. "What will you do with mine?"

The question, asked without malice, expectation, or fear made her pause. In truth, Raven felt a slight stab of guilt, in realizing that it wasn't so much what would she do with Jinx, but what she'd continue to do. What would the result of her own actions be? "What makes you think I'd take it?"

"Do you really need to?" Raven blinked, and she could feel Jinx laughing silently through their contact. The brush moved again, parting strands of hair just for it's own sake, the comfort of the action lulling Jinx, and that same sense lapping at Raven and keeping her hands moving.

"Such an idea doesn't worry or make you nervous?"

Jinx shrugged, and loosed a deep breath, settling back against Raven more. "It does. It's human nature for that to happen," after a moment, she leaned her head back, placing her temples below Raven's hands. "Besides. What could I do if you wanted my soul anyway?" Laughing quietly, the young woman opened her eye, staring up into the pale, expressionless gashes that Raven looked at her from. "I'll use what you've given me, to take some of my own vengeance. I won't waste this chance. Killing... even if I hadn't called you, I was damned already. Why half do this? Besides, I can't really think of a... nicer demon." Smirking, Jinx shrugged, "could have been worse."

Laughing quietly, Raven smiled, her fingers tracing at Jinx's skin. Faintly she could feel the scar under her fingers, as they traced along the woman's brow. "I'm flattered," Raven said quietly then and leaning down, she hesitated, before brushing her lips against the young woman's forehead. "It may seem cliché to say so, but don't worry.

"It all gets easier from here."

oOo

"Stupid fucking morons," Gizmo kicked another door open, and glared about at the people who looked up at him with wide eyes, startled by his appearance. "What?"

One of those gathered held up a deck of cards, and looked about at the others there a moment. "Want dealt in?"

Blinking incredulously at the people there, Gizmo stomped into the room and kicked over the card table, glaring about the others as they either stood and moved away from him, or to each other. "Did you not just see what happened out there?"

"Look man, what can we do against the fucking rain? Huh?" The lamp in the room by his place was one of the many lights about the common room, all the windows boarded up against the elements. Standing from the couch and the book he was reading, See-more glared from beneath his ball cap, helmet off and laying on the chair beside him. "What do you want us to do? Cower in here?"

Running a hand over his head, Gizmo sighed and walked over to his irritated teammate and the mess his tantrum had wrought. "Look, that rain? That was XL. I just got out of the lab."

"Jesus," running a hand over his face, See-more, looked over as Baran came into the room, his broad shoulders barely fitting through the door. "XL?" When Gizmo nodded, the lanky man who'd worked alongside the short genius and the large man to his side picked up his helmet and came to stand beside them.

Gizmo looked over the room again, the dozen or so blank faces, staring either at him or losing interest. "Yeah. We need to get the others, or figure out what's going on. I don't really want to end up on that red list that keeps growing."

Nodding, See-more looked over the room, feeling for the first time the gravity of what was happening. XL, Angel, Billy... "Yeah. Yeah, lets get a plan. I don't feel like being a statistic. What do you think is going on?"

"I don't really know what to think," Gizmo stated as they walked down the hall of the large building, the last of Brother Blood's legacies. Hulled out and half crumbling, the old school was little more than a lot of dormitories and some common rooms now, and served as a base for Gizmo and Baran before the events that seemed to be plaguing the the former Hive members. Now, it housed dozens of the old team, as after his initial paranoia played out, Gizmo had sent out the call for them to come back together. "So far nothing really makes a lot of sense."

"That's really not reassuring, considering," Baran muttered, as they walked along the path leading to Gizmo's room. That path lead them from the main commons, through the mess hall and into the dorm. As usual, quite a few of the former Hive were gathered in the mess, as they passed into it. "Hm. Going to grab a bite."

Regarding him with a look of disgust, Gizmo walked on, shaking his head.

"Man's got to eat," Baran offered in reply, as he walked by a table where some were eating already. Looking at the gloom and darkness in the room, he took hold of a curtain chain and pulled, the large hanging folds of cloth moving on pulleys away from the massive windows overlooking the courtyard.

After the compound had been abandoned by the Hive, little had changed. The fight that had taken place had blown out most of the windows, so those were often boarded up, or the mechanism that ran them broken beyond simple repair. Even some doors were locked tight in such ways, and it was a rarity that windows could let in the sun, like those in the mess.

"Holy sh... Gizmo!"

Turning from where he was stalking off, See-more in tow, the diminutive genius glared back at Baran as he stumbled back into a table, knocking it back and spilling the food on it with the impact. It was the look on Baran's face more than anything that got the young man's attention, and drew it out the windows.

Jogging over, he stalled as the sight in the courtyard greeted him. The old school had been, at some point, a modern if not legal, institution. It's courtyard had housed the athletic fields, pools and various sports and fitness tracks that had kept them in working order.

Now, it seemed a slaughterhouse. Miles it seemed of flesh, strips of it lay all about the field, bones laying up against the school's walls at odd points. All dry. All massive, huge and with wrong angles, strange colors. Arranged neatly across the tennis courts were organs, dessicated and dried, all set out in some kind of perverse order. At the head of the field was a skull, halved neatly and with it's contents set out in a neat pattern before it. Floating in the Olympic sized pool, two red-rimmed eyes gazed sightless up at the sun. A scream from inside sent a flock of birds into the air, as they had been there feeding on the bounty left for the morning sun to discover.

"The bones... oh shit. I'm out of here, fuck this noise man," See-more ran from the room then, pushing by Gizmo where he stood transfixed. His eyes moved away from the swimming pool, an the massive black orbs there, to the bones that leaned up along the walls. "I see you," they spelled out, in yellowed curves and strange angles, tied up in places with great ropes of tendon and sinew.

"Gizmo. Giz, hey," a smack on the back nearly sent him careening. "Sorry, hey, wake up." Looking about, the little man blinked up into the face of Baran, as it leaned over him. He could hear the faint sounds of people running, panicking. "We need to go."

Snorting out of his stupor, Gizmo blinked around, at the chaos of people running to and from the room, unbelieving what was out in their courtyard. "Baran, lock it down."

Mammoth shot him a quizzical glance but shrugged, trusting the smaller man. Reaching into a pocket he pulled out a small device, and keyed in a simple sequence of button presses. Shortly, the compound went into lockdown, doors sealing and windows, the ones not broken beyond repair, shuttering closed. "Hope you know what you're doing, we're obviously not safe here."

"Yeah, I hope I know too," nodding, Gizmo stood back on his feet and spared the windows one more glance. "And yeah. We're not safe here. Hell I don't know if we're safe anywhere." Looking about himself dazedly, the genius closed his eyes and shook his head. "Damn it."

oOo

"Going out tonight?"

Jinx's voice made her pause, as her hand reached for the door. "You were sleeping."

Yawning, the woman shrugged, rubbing at her eye slowly, "I nodded off reading. Speaking of which, that was an odd book."

"I brought it from home, a long time ago." Turning, Raven regarded the woman where she stood, leaning on the door frame to the bedroom in her jeans and shirt, hair a sleep-ruffled mess. "Didn't expect you to be back up for a while."

Nodding the former thief slumped onto the couch and stifled another yawn. "Oddly, it's hard to sleep on the bed. I'm not used to one, been sleeping in corners... on junk for so long." Raven watched as her breath went even again, curled up there between the couch cushion and the arm in a huddle. A light touch of her mind confirmed that the woman was sleeping, and not the fitful nap she'd seen on the bed.

Hesitating, the demon remained watching for a moment till her eyes were drawn to the windows, the city beyond.

No, the windows themselves. Eyes narrowing, she reached out her empathy as-

Heat and light blasted her into the wall, and she let the force of impact scatter her, soaking into the stuff of the wall like so much oil striking water. Casting her mind about, she finally found the one responsible, barely a flicker on the fabric of the world.

Cassandra Cain waited. Kneeling on the ledge across the street from the building that Faith had pinpointed, she had waited all day. Finally, come night a light had broken through a window and she had struck. Swinging to the crumbling waste that was the Hotel, she flung her handful of explosive-laced spikes into the wall and window, the arc of her swing taking her clear of the initial blast. It's second swing took her into the hulled out room, and kneeling amid the pool of her cape, she waited again.

Shadow began to shift, divorced from the light-

Her elbow struck out in a flash and the impact shattered the wall and mortar behind it. A low noise, like someone screaming in a distant room reached her ears but she was again moving. Someone lay injured, the initial blast having thrown them and debris against the wall, behind an overturned couch.

A young woman, pale and with a vivid head of hair sat bleeding shallowly from cuts and glass, but to her sight was otherwise – wait. Her breath sounded wrong, sounded like someone else-

"She is mine. Find your own."

Stupid, she'd left her guard down to inspect the 'innocent', and left herself open. Whirling around, the cape's weighted edges arching along with her motion, Batgirl spun her heel into the shadows behind her, the inky smoke parting without resistance. Unfazed, she positioned herself again, looking and listening intently.

"Interesting mind... very interesting," eyes narrowing, she remained still. The voice wasn't outside her. It was _inside_. "And bright as well. Cassandra... daughter of the most successful assassins in the world. Welcome to my home."

Raven dropped the illusion on the building, then. Cassandra's vision was a wash of blood, slick yellow bone and screaming faces, their skulls pulled and stretched grotesquely along corners and into the very fabric of the walls. Everything, the ceiling, floor and the air itself stank of blood and gore, as her eyes and ears were overwhelmed with the sight and sound of thousands upon thousands of crawling, creeping things with pale eyes that watched her.

Something seized her, in that moment of overwhelming motion and noise and held her. "Shhh. Be still. I've no quarrel with you, curious girl." This time she could feel the probing, a slick, thin tendril of cold and will knifing into her mind. It cut into her thoughts, and despite herself, Cassandra flinched. "Ah. A loosed hound, of the League."

As suddenly as she was held, the assassin turned hero was set loose, and with breath rasping only once, she regained her feet. "This isn't your fight, daughter of Cain. Flee." Shaking her head, the woman again set her senses and sought the body that housed the mind that spoke to her. "Ah, but see, that's the problem. There is no body, unless I want it. Your friends, allies should have told you.

"I'm dead after all," rising from the debris-strewn floor, shadows parted and shuddered, and with a gasp of broken limbs, Raven rose. A semblance of her, at an rate, it was the last form she'd worn in her mortal form. Red runes lined her from head to toe, as she wavered, naked and broken there, skin torn and ripped free and hanging off her bones. Central to it all a black nothing bubbled and grasped, below the ruin of her chest, as she regarded Batgirl from empty, dry voids in a skull that was only vaguely human. "This is what they let become of me. A thing to be used and discarded. What business have you here, then?"

Ignoring the words, she struck again, her foot sweeping the revenant's jaw free as it spun and shattered against a wall. Hollow laughter echoed about the room, as the body that had borne it stood nonplussed. ""_That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die_", Batgirl? I'm afraid you've not been about long enough, by far to qualify for that privilege." Reaching out a hand the thing pointed and that seething nothing in it's bowels whirled and sucked at the air greedily. "You error, thinking as you do here."

Again she struck, and the thing's chest broke and caved in, the grotesque mockery of female anatomy distorted further. "You don't seem to understand, Cassandra. The rules you obey, that your world conforms to, mean little to me." Frowning, the caped hero reached into her belt and pulled free more explosive spikes, hurling them into the ragged flesh that shook and shuddered, an effort to simply stand. The explosion that resulted didn't phase her, pulling her cape about herself to shield from the debris of it.

"Still you fail to see," turning to the sound, Batgirl's eyes widened as she saw the four slashes of Raven's eyes peering back at her from the inside of her own cape. "Your masters loosed you on an errand they did not understand," pulling the cape free, she moved to throw it free, but it clung to her arm, crawling along her skin, numbing it with cold as it's formless sheet spread and billowed. "Do you see?"

Panting, Cassandra ripped the arm of her bodysuit free and shucked it off her arm, leaving the cloth and cape to pool on the floor as she rolled away. Regaining her feet, the woman looked to those possessed thing, only to see them inert, still on the floor. "Do you see?" Spinning, she looked about her anxiously, unsure of her enemy's direction.

From above her a shadow swept down, a silhouette of a girl, upside down before her, hair hanging down lank and swaying in the air. This time Batgirl didn't strike, but simply watched. Blank white eyes opened and bored into her own, expressionless. "Do you see?" Staring back into those empty lamps she could feel the sins of her past, all the killing, all the deaths well up inside her.

Her first kill, still a child, barely eight years old. Cassandra felt her skin go cold again, her mother's body hung on a hook above a Lazarus Pit, so soon from her own resurrection. Again her body weighed down by seawater and fatigue as Spoiler's ghost refused her the peace of death.

"You seek vengeance against circumstance. To prove yourself better, and therefore defeat not only the presence of those parents whose shadow you cannot move from, but also the idea their hands in your life present." Closing her eyes, she shook at images of a white room, bereft of anything but that luminous nothing staring back at her. Her eyes didn't close on that nothing for what felt like decades. At the speed of dream she relived her life, again and again.

_Four seconds_, the voice said. _In that room four seconds passed while I relived my life, from start to end_. Cassandra did as well, looking out of those eyes. Her father's training. Each day passing in anguish, memory of it all perfect. Deaths. Killing. Growing. Learning. Despair. Love. Hope. _Each time I tried to see what I could do to change it. Undo what had happened_. Now the images, the pattern flashing by with soul-crushing force changed and she could no longer desensitize herself to it's passage. Things altered, chances taken differently. _Let me show you what it's like to live a life, __**seven million, five-hundred and forty nine thousand, one hundred and ninety-eight times**__. Each time trying to see the wrong. See your error. Why everyone you trusted, everything you've striven for and tried to hope for, was crushed and refused you._

Batgirl jerked, where she slumped against the wall, her eyes wide and unseeing, but her mind could not close it's eye. _See my hell, Cassandra. _Those brown eyes rolled up into the woman's skull, as her body feebly spasmed on the floor. _Do you see_?

Cassandra saw. In her mind, a life, her own played out to this point. Each time subtly different. Each time ending the same, with the knowledge that at the end, she lay frothing a the mouth as her mind closed it's talons in her soul and would not let go.

Raven slipped down to the floor and regarded the woman who lay there. Kneeling down, she ran a hand along her face, her own back in it's semblance of humanity. Something... similar in the woman made her hesitate. Stilled her killing hand. "You will survive this. You are too strong not to. Like me, your are a monster, just one with a fate that doesn't lie here." Slipping an arm about the woman's shoulder, Raven lifted the slender form up and carried her to the blown out window that dominated the apartment.

"This is not your fight," looking out a the stars, Raven smiled a very small, very cold smile. "For all this place, this city and maybe the world are damned and falling into my darkest dream, you aren't a part of it."

She looked out at the city, and the yawning chasm of the street below her. In a moment of clarity she could see the asphalt writhing under the heat of flame from beneath, driven and cracked by the feet of things damned and walking. "This isn't your fight. Go home."

Flinging the limp form from the window, she watched as shadow warped and wrapped around Batgirl, as her limbs twisted from the fall. Then she was gone, swallowed up by Raven's will.

Sighing tiredly, the woman-made-demon leaned on the ruin of the windows and looked a the ground-borne sky the city displayed. Stars, planets and every light of the sky, gleaming up in a perverse mockery. "Did you enjoy your little freedom, Jump? The respite from my father, a salvation from his hell? Your time without me, uncaring for the sacrifice I gave for your survival?"

A groan told her that Jinx was waking to her injuries. Blinking out over the city, Raven felt rage, cold and calculating well up in her breast. "I hope you did. Seven and a half million lifetimes of nightmare. Soon, it will be time to pay for that peace," turning, she gestured and the wall shimmered back into place, the debris melting into the floor as the illusion she maintained of the Hotel slipped back over reality like a second skin.

She found Jinx laying by the wall, the destroyed balcony and window tearing her body and leaving jagged trails which had soaked her clothes. Raven settled her cloak over the young woman, and into that same blackness fell as well.

Rising from the pool of shadow between the bedsheets and the bed itself, Raven left her companion whole and sleeping off the effects of the healing while she herself drifted, staggering against the wall nearby.

She'd meant to move on, a spark that had caught her mind present in the city beckoning to her, but the recent fight and healing and forcing into another her own broken damnation had exhausted her strangely. "Even I have limits, it seems," she murmured, and without preamble shuffled back to the bed and simply collapsed there beside the other woman, not bothering to pull back the sheets or make herself comfortable.

Jinx's troubled sleep eased, as the images in nightmare were pulled away. Beside her the torpid form of Raven shed it's shadowy cloak as the mind that drove it went still, sleeping herself for the first time in years. Dreams or nightmares may have moved through that sleeping mind, but in the face of her reality, they likely fled.

oOo

Waking with a start, Jinx groaned and shifted, feeling for all the world like a hangover like no other was hammering about in her skull. Closing her eye again tight, she sat up slowly and hoped the room wouldn't be trying to play the part of carousel when she opened it again.

Surprisingly, the soreness and disorientation passed, as she woke more fully, and peering about her the former thief was surprised to see she wasn't alone in the bed. "I thought I went out to sleep on the couch," she thought to herself, peering at the quiet form of Raven beside her. Though she'd not seen her so peaceful, it was oddly disconcerting to see the demon so... human. Sleeping, she could almost forget the former Titan's usual visage, cloaked so in her shadows as to erase her form.

Quietly, Jinx rose and straitened her clothes, peering out at the world through the windows. The odd distortion at the corner of her vision was stronger, but she knew it was Raven's sleeping that let it happen. Not a fool, she knew something more was going on than first met the eye in the Hotel. Frankly though, she didn't care.

Perhaps it was something Raven felt she'd not want to know. Perhaps it was 'too horrible' in the demon's opinion, whatever it was. Despite her sometime naiveté, Jinx had been the one to summon Raven, had been the one to survive her own horrors, and regardless of the truth, she'd face it. She had resigned herself to die, or worse, after all. Gazing out at the city, it's nighttime lights faint from the window and height, Jinx could feel the impetus of Raven's presence on the sprawling metropolis.

It wasn't that she had singularly darkened the feel of the place. It was more... a coaxing. Small things, taken and used and pressed properly were leading it to darker and darker depths. Laying her hand on the windowsill she could feel the pulse of the Hotel. It was a living thing, now, almost. With each piece of herself that was replaced, her sense of self grew. With that, returned her innate power, and the senses she bore that let her tap into the weave of magic. As she grew stronger, that awareness sharpened, and now she could feel the presences in the building.

Before she'd made the pact with Raven, perhaps it would bother her... no. Before she'd lost all she held as her own. After that, little held so much meaning. The scene and Raven's actions at the Diner, when she had taken all those people into her darkness after their talk, cemented that ideal inside her.

There was no thing that could come, she'd not face directly. She was ready, if it came to it, to die when her revenge was complete. Jinx realized as her hand slipped down the window's sill that she was also willing to kill, if presented the opportunity. Already three deaths were on her hands.

Raven was right, she admitted with a smile, cold and empty as she looked out over the lifeless lights of the city. "It does get easier."

Stretching, she winced as her body shifted and metal ground against bone. Straitening her clothes, the woman moved quietly to leave, but paused at the doorway. Jinx had intended to go out and get something to eat, having not done so yet that day. Though the pantry was always stocked, she wanted to go and move about, walk and breath new air. She knew Raven would likely not join her, besides this was literally the only time ever she'd seen the former Titan sleeping.

Sneaking quietly to the bedside, Jinx peered down at the still form of Raven, sleeping. Tilting her head, the woman busied herself a moment, pulling a coverlet over her companion before leaving the apartment.

oOo

Walking along the streets, her clothes something less the rags she'd worn only days before, Jinx found in herself some of the old exuberance and energy that had escaped her for so long. Enough so that she hazarded to visit an old haunt, craving something social and mindless.

Odd, she figured. It wasn't that Raven was bad company, quite the opposite. Not like she could discuss her mind with anyone else, outside of the Slab's occupants, without getting herself carted in for psychological analysis. She didn't fancy a trip to an Antarctic slammer to chat, so Raven would happily do for the moment.

On the other hand, she was sparse company when it came to conversation, and about as entertaining normally as a footstool. Probably had something to do with being locked in a box for two years. Jinx figured she'd lighten up a bit in time, but till then...

She needed to indulge in a bit of nightlife. It had been far too long since the last time, and an thrill of excitement ran through her at the idea. Jinx had no intention of picking up someone, or getting drunk, or for that matter had no real idea what she intended.

_Out_. That was as far as she'd gotten as far as planning.

It didn't take her long to reach the Straits, the few streets in the part of town devoted to bars, watering holes and dens of questionable activity. "Absolutely perfect," she sighed, spinning about a streetlight and disturbing foot traffic for a moment.

Jinx remembered how it used to feel. Walking into the neon lights, and the flashing bulbs of the bars and clubs and seedier things, flesh houses and taboo dens. Maybe she'd just gotten done with a big hit, or possibly gotten a lucky fence off something. More money than a young girl with no future knew what to do with.

Young, she'd been nervous to indulge in harder pursuits. Heavy drugs were out, as she needed to be sharp. The same applied to the riskier games. Gambling was strait out, as she hated odds that didn't let her stack her way through skill alone.

Drinking was a simple game. She played it well, had for a while. Street smart meant knowing from experience what and what not to do, when you're a young woman with few people that would miss you. Lucky for her, she had a loaded deck with her powers, or early on the streets would have taught her the darker side of sex.

As it was, she took as she pleased. Which wasn't much, admittedly. Call it stubborn aesthetics – most people smelled funny. Or couldn't keep her interest long. Maybe they just didn't strike her fancy. She'd let herself slide into that dance on three occasions, one of which had ended with her being put out of the game for a year, tending to a swollen belly and later a mewling little thing that looked up at her with eyes like her own.

Her expression turned grim for a moment, as she inspected the window of a shop intently. What kind of life could she have if at every turn something reminded her of loss? Taking a deep breath, she loosed and pictured those memories fleeing with that breath. Again, and again she repeated this cleansing, each time letting those pains dim. Jinx didn't want to forget her pains, but needed distance, clarity from them. They shaped her. Defined her, but they weren't the whole of who she was.

In time, she could almost pretend the woman who swayed down the street wasn't a killer, or tormented by inner demons that most would flee from. She passed the hourly hotels, the drug dens and harder frivolities, and found a club that played music she liked. It smelled of people, sweat, alcohol and lust. Breathing deep, Jinx slipped in and settled near a cove by the floor.

A few days ago she'd danced for Raven, drunk off the reality of a more whole body.

Now it was time to dance for herself.

Though her energy wasn't fully back, it didn't matter. She was alive. She could move, and dance, and the music was _fine_ and it was wonderful. Lights played into her eye as she looked up and out over the floor, the brightness picking out people, faces that were at once amazing and unremarkable. Jinx acknowledged them, knew they were beautiful, and forgot them in a moment.

All but one.

At first, she thought... nothing. Just a cold recognition. Her arms and body kept swaying, moving with the beat that drove the bodies around her into a frenzy. As the next part of the song began, a heat ran through her, a _desire_. Something she _needed_.

Dancing, the crowd was easy to navigate, she was moving with, rather than against the press of people. Hands touched her, brushed past, and she touched and passed on a bit of that contact as she moved. Then, she was on him.

The vodka and beer were strong on his breath, even in the crowd. It floated about him like a cloud, and it amused her distantly that he was still standing, much less dancing. It started then, that ritual that people had done for ages. She met his eyes, the fall of her hair masking her lack, and she smiled.

Through his drunken daze, the man smiled back, and she swayed closer, dipping briefly into that alcohol miasma that surrounded the man like a cloud of flies. Meeting his eyes again she looked down and focused on her movements, her hips rolling, arms waving by her sides as she turned. She let him see her neck, her cheek as she arched her back, grinding against the noise of the club like a physical thing.

He took the invitation. In a moment she felt hands on her hips and indulged in a little flare of victory. The music carried them for long minutes like this, as he grew braver, letting her feel him through their motion. His hands crept up and she took them, pulling them back to her hips, held the contact to reassure him.

When the song ended, she turned and pressed the still-woman side of her body against him, murmuring softly, knowing he'd not hear. He looked quizzical, and she stepped back, looking to the door and back. Smiling, he followed and they eased through the press of bodies, his hand in her own.

Outside the cold, fall air snapped her awake and her senses clean. He stank of drink and sweat, old anxiety and opiates. Red hair and blue eyes looked back at her as they walked clear of the club and it was nearly three blocks before he said anything, her long trek from the music not missed. "Hey, where we goin'?"

Summoning a coy look, she grinned back at the man, "Well that depends, honey. You wanna see heaven, or hell?"

Frowning, he made to stop but she pull the hand she held to a hip and continued on. His resistance evaporated, "Heaven huh, with you I think that'd be nice."

"Oh but honey I'm not going to heaven," crooning the words to the abandoned streets, Jinx practically skipped as they passed the park.

Laughing at her, the man shrugged and smiled, "So I guess hell then? You a naughty girl a bad one?" A dumb look spread over his face, "I like the bad ones."

The Hotel loomed above them, and she considered the elevator. "I bet you catch a lot of bad girls, don't you?" The redhead nodded, as she pulled him through the grand entrance doors, and while he was still thinking about those other "bad girls", she guided him into the elevator.

"Bad girls like good boys, so I hear," she slid back to the far wall, away from the access panel and grinned, keeping her bangs over the scarred pit of her eye. "And if you're very, very good, I even have a friend who would like to meet you."

As she'd hoped, the idea settled in his head and the smile that split his face was painted with lust, dull eyes glazing in his imaginings. "Oh I can be good. I'm a hero, after all."

Jinx feigned surprise and toed the floor coyly, "Really...? Oh I know she'll wanna meet you then. I bet she'll eat you right up," bubbling up a giggle for the young man, she honestly felt amused. How simple this was...

Pale metal doors opened and she swept out, taking his hand, "Just a bit further baby. I have someone you'll just be dying to meet." Jinx rattled the door the room far too loudly, and smiled as she felt Raven's spike of awareness sweep the the Hotel. Lucky for her, the besotted man beside her was too far gone to notice the odd swell and unnaturally organic sweep of the walls, as they passed.

Jinx winked at some pale, many-legged thing as it slipped between one shadow and another, and to her surprise, it paused and winked back. Laughing she threw open the door, and tossed the man through before her, giggling again as he sputtered and skidded to a halt in the middle of the room. "Oi, hey that was kinda rough," he complained, rubbing at his shoulder as he looked about.

Jinx mocked a pout, "Awe, but I thought you would like it rough..." leaning forward, she planted a foot on his shoulder, as he was still getting his balance, and kicked out hard. The force planted him against the couch's back, and he stumbled and fell over onto it. Splayed out and shaking off the dizziness of the spinning room, the man blinked as something _detached_ itself from a doorway and stared at him.

He blinked rapidly. The thing shivered a moment and stretched, arms unfurling out and balling into fits, a sound like a yawn escaping it. Then four shallowly-slanted diagonal lights shone out of the thing's head and he shook off the blurring in his vision, something familiar scrabbling at his memory at seeing those... eyes? "What's going on here?"

Raven hesitated a moment, still unused to the languor of sleep that had fallen over her. Definitely something to do in moderation in the future... but here, something interesting. "Well well, look what the cat dragged in," Jinx giggled and leaned back against the hotel room door, the latch catching loudly in the silence.

"I thought you might like a snack when you woke up," the quirky woman replied, shrugging. "Was surprised to see him in the Straits honestly," leaning over the couch, she grinned down at the man, her face cast half in shadow in the room's dim light.

Curiously he looked to her, wondering what the hell was going on. Anxiety was slowly riding up on his spine, pushing back at the cloud the drugs and vodka had settled over his brain. He started when the shadows forced his eyes to seek out her own, and under the fall of bangs he noted the lack there. "The hell is going on?" Reaching to his belt, his hand closed on... nothing?

"Looking for something honey?" Dancing away from the man, Jinx produced a small red-lined communicator, the thick yellow "T" prominent on it's lid. "Sorry, old habits die hard." Turning to her companion, the pink-haired woman grinned at the shadowed form and tilted her head, "does this mean what I think it does, Raven?"

Nodding, the demon moved forward and leaned over, staring Roy Harper in the eyes, as she offered him a smile, "I think so, Jinx. I believe that they added a more pieces to the game. How lovely." Looking back to the woman, looking so pleased with herself, Raven grinned. "And here I was planning to find him earlier, before my nap. What a coincidence."

"Raven? Jinx?" Speedy's mind caught up with the moment and he scrambled back, falling off the couch. Why the _fuck_ had he listened to Garth and gone out before checking in at the Tower? That man's womanizing was going to get him... killed. _Raven_. Robin had called in the Titans East that morning, to help with the serial murderer that was active in Jump. The one they thought did Eddie. _Oh god_. Mind reeling, he scrambled back, cursing again when he found absolutely nothing to use as a weapon nearby. "Wait, wait. Jinx why are you with her? I thought you were with the Titans?" He considered the chair in the corner, then looked back to see the woman he'd followed supposedly to a momentary tryst standing alone.

Jinx offered him a wide smile. "Why be a pauper in heaven, when I can be a princess in hell?"

_Shit_. Running for the chair he'd seen, Speedy came up short hard, when he saw Raven, missing a moment before when he'd spoken to Jinx, sitting in the very thing. "Why mister Harper, such a hurry to leave? How disappointing, and with two lovely women having you all to themselves."

"Please," holding his hands out before him, warding the two off he backed away. "I don't know what you want, but whatever it is, we can reason this out." Swallowing hard he took another step slowly toward the room's door, the alcohol haze quickly leaving him alone there, cold and scared and lucid. "Just tell me what you want. Maybe I can help."

Speedy's vision shifted, jerked nervously from the madly smiling pink-haired seductress to the shadows pooling all around the room and he lost his nerve, seeing Raven missing again. Turning he moved to reach for the door-

Something cold and smooth slid into his stomach, the sound of the muscles and tendons that held in his entrails parting with a sound like wetly tearing fabric, and a distant sensation of heat over is navel. "Oh. I'll tell you what I want, Roy," Raven's eyes were so empty, as he looked into them, only an inch from his face. He imagined they weren't eyes at all, but windows that let him see through her, through everything and into whatever lay beyond. "I want you."

His breath wouldn't come. It felt like something was pulling at his diaphragm and would not loose it. Speedy's mouth worked silently, as the effort to speak taxed him, "Why me?"

"Because the stage isn't ready for the real players," Raven replied simply, her mouth a deceptively gentle curve below those inhuman eyes. Reaching up she ran the backs of her fingers along his cheek, as the pain in his gut flared like hot iron. Raven shivered at sudden spike of sensations that washed over her.

Raven practically purred, the fabric of her cloak soaking with blood as it shallowly sawed at the man's abdomen, slipping under his skin and barbing wickedly. "Let slip into something more comfortable, you and I..."

Jinx settled on the couch, watching as Raven's smile shone out of her shadowed cloak. Fingering the communicator in her hand, she watched as the fabric of the demon's cloak separated into a thousand barbed strands, the woman's naked curves shining pale and bright in the moonlight. Then the stark lines were lost, as those barbs spun and dived, and the spray of dark blood blurred her back into the shadows.

Biting into an apple she'd snatched from the pantry, Jinx's tongue snaked out to recapture the juice that tried to escape along her chin. Tasty. "Easier and easier," she noted idly, licking a the exposed fruit with a low, satisfied sound.


End file.
